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• Kruger hits five-under-par in Leopard Creek second round
• George Coetzee drops five shots in last three holes

Jbe Kruger took advantage of a collapse by his fellow South African George Coetzee to race clear in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek, Malelane.

Coetzee, the only member of the world’s top 100 taking part, led by four shots but then dropped five in the last three holes of his second round.

Kruger, chasing a maiden European Tour victory, stepped in to add a five-under-par 67 to his opening 64 and reach halfway on 131, 13 under. The 25-year-old is four ahead of England’s Seve Benson, the Scot George Murray and the Chilean Felipe Aguilar.

As for the Spaniard Pablo Martin, the winner of the title for the past two years, he finished 155th and joint last after rounds of 81 and 82. They were played alongside Coetzee, who was sailing on smoothly until he found water on the short 7th, his 16th.

After taking five there he duffed a chip on the next and double-bogeyed again, then failed to get out of a greenside bunker at the 9th and dropped another shot.

Kruger, a former Zambia and Zimbabwe Open champion, has missed the cut in the event the last three years but this time has already claimed two eagles and 12 birdies.

Benson had kept pace in the first round but had to settle for a second-round 71. At 163rd on this season’s Tour money list he faces a huge weekend. Only a victory will secure his card for next year.

Murray has no such worries after finishing joint third with Graeme McDowell in the Dunhill Links championship at St Andrews last month.

The 28-year-old from Anstruther started that week 183rd on the Order of Merit and found himself playing with Luke Donald in the final round but outscored the world No1 by three and quadrupled his 2011 earnings.

He added a 69 to his first-round 66 this time while Aguilar, winner of the 2008 Indonesian Open, had a best-of-the-day 64. “As long as you put yourself into contention then you are going to have a fun weekend,” he said.

The former Ryder Cup player Oliver Wilson, on the other hand, missed the cut on three over and at 132nd on the money list could need a top-10 finish at next week’s South African Open to keep his Tour career afloat.

It is only two years ago that the Mansfield golfer was the circuit’s seventh-biggest earner with almost £2m. The nine-times runner-up has earned less than a tenth of that this season.