The start of the eagerly anticipated Test series between South Africa and Australia is now upon us with the first Test of the four beginning in Durban on Thursday as two of the best in this format of the game do battle.
Both sides are enjoying good spells during the current English winter and have built up plenty of confidence over the last few months so there can be no excuses for either. Although this is a four match series both teams will be aiming to win this game to seize early control of the play.
South Africa
The South Africans go into this first Test off the back of a hard fought win over India at the turn of the year where their bowlers won the day for them. They produced a number of green wickets for that series and profited accordingly but from the talk going around they are not prepared to take the same approach against Australia.
That could mean that there is more emphasis on the batsmen to deliver the goods over the next few weeks beginning here in Durban. With that in mind they will be looking for all of their senior players to step up and be counted because they face a real challenge in the form of this Australian bowling attack.
Australia
The touring Australians began the English winter with a solid if a little unspectacular 4-0 thrashing of England in The Ashes. While the scoreline of that series was emphatic they were heavily reliant on their captain Steve Smith and if Australia are to get the better of South Africa over these four matches then you would think many others will need to contribute.
The one area of the game where there is no concerns for the visitors comes with the ball where they are exceptionally good and perhaps most importantly for a tour of this kind they have the sufficient depth required should an injury or a sudden loss of form occur. If their batsmen can stand up and occupy the crease for long periods they should be tough to beat.
Team News
South Africa need to decide whether to play the extra bowler or another batsman. Temba Bavuma still hasn’t recovered from injury so he is unlikely to feature so Theunis de Bruyn would be the extra batsman with Lundi Ngidi the other bowler.
Australian captain Steve Smith has already confirmed that his side will be unchanged from the team which won in Sydney which means that Cameron Bancroft will start the match with Peter Handscomb once again missing out.
Kingsmead
There have been 42 previous Test matches on this ground with South Africa having featured in all of them. They have a symmetrical record here too with 14 wins, 14 defeats and 14 draws. Australia have won five matches with three defeats and a pair of draws.
The wicket here usually favours the bowlers but it is expected to be a little on the slow side to dampen the threat of the Australian seam attack so we might see a strip more suited for longer innings and crease occupation.
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Betting
This is a long and interesting series so I’m not going to go too mad in this first match. I will take one bet to begin with and that is the performance of Pat Cummins which at 115.5pts is a line I think he can cover.
We saw in The Ashes that he is a more than competent batsman and we also saw how good he is with the new and the old ball. I think Cummins will be a big player for Australia in this series and that impact can begin immediately where five wickets and a bunch of runs will see this covered but a really solid innings will mean four wickets could well be enough. I’ll take the over.
Tips
Back P.Cummins’ Performance – Over 115.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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