Day three report

South Africa were bowled out for 189 and at stumps Sri Lanka had advanced to 211-4, a lead of 492.

Smith said: "We did not have a good day today. We got ourselves into a bad position and did not get ourselves out of it.

"We lost 7-73 today that is simply not good enough," he added.

Smith was surprised Sri Lanka had not enforced the follow-on and said it gave the tourists a chance of saving the match.

Somebody had to come up with a good bowling spell in Murali's absence and I got an opportunity of doing that Sanath Jayasuriya

He said: "I was surprised that they did not enforce the follow-on which gave us an opportunity to regroup, re-think and comeback.

"The pressure is on us now to go out there and bat for two days. We still believe we can do it as we have guys that can bat for two days - there is no doubt about that."

Part-time Sri Lanka spinner Sanath Jayasuriya, who was given a greater load in Muttiah Muralitharan's absence, took career-best figures of 5-34 to engineer South Africa's collapse.

"Somebody had to come up with a good bowling spell in Murali's absence and I got an opportunity of doing that," said Jayasuriya.

"I was only thinking of putting the ball in the right areas and giving some kind of support to the other end.

"It was not a difficult wicket to bat on and I feel South Africa were a little negative. They didn't want to play shots and that is why they lost wickets."