The opening Test match of the four between South Africa and England gets underway on Boxing Day and it does so in Centurion where both sides will be looking to seize the early initiative over the course of the series.
You would think this is a series which will be won from the front given the fragile confidence the two teams heading into it and that makes this opening game of the four pretty big in the overall picture of things you would think.
South Africa
This is a nation that is full of pride so regardless of what is going on off the pitch for them at the minute, they will be keen to deliver the goods on it, which makes them a potential dangerous side to face. They are relatively new into another era though so how well they will have been able to take the new things on board and get into a position to play that out on the park remains to be seen. You would sense this is a work in progress at the minute.
The South African hierarchy had to be changed. They have lost their last five Test matches and no team of their stature is going to allow a run of form like that to manifest itself into something even worse. Clearly if they are going to win Test matches again they are going to have to find a way to put up regular big runs again. It has been a while since they have delivered the scores worthy of winning Test matches.
England
This is a big match for England. They are becoming synonymous with slow starts to tours but having had a couple of warm up matches they don’t really have an excuse here, even allowing for an illness in the camp which kept one or two players of the second of those practice matches. It is important for England moving forward to hit the ground running, for their own self-belief as much as anything else that they would get out of it.
If they are going to achieve that then they are going to need to find a way to put up consistent runs. To be fair to them there were signs in New Zealand recently that the penny might be dropping on that front. If they can stick up decent scores then you would think they have the bowling attack to come out on top in matches in places like South Africa, but despite the issues their opponents are having, England will need to pull it all together.
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Team News
It looks like South Africa are going to hand out a couple of debuts for this match with Rassie van der Dussen and Dwaine Pretorius both set to make their first appearances at this level. Vernon Philander begins his final series as a Proteas player but Temba Bavuma misses out.
The England team is a lot more up in the air because an illness is going through the camp. It looks like Ben Stokes will be able to play now with his father’s health improving. Jimmy Anderson is set for a recall too with Jonny Bairstow to come in for Ollie Pope if he doesn’t recover from the illness in time.
SuperSport Park
There have only been 24 previous matches on this ground in the past, with South Africa having an insanely good record of 19 wins in that time. They have drawn three matches and lost only the two, which is quite some feat and which should give them a lot of confidence here. England have accounted for one of those losses. They have also lost one themselves and drawn the other three in their five visits here.
This used to be a high scoring ground but there hasn’t been a score more than 335 made here in the last two Test matches on this ground which is an interesting statistic. You would think with the state of these two batting line ups that the average score isn’t going to increase here. History also suggests that this is a ground for the seamers rather than the spinners. That could be seen to be played out here.
Betting
I’m not going to rush into this series. We have three matches to come after this one so I can ease my way in, especially having taken three outright bets for the overall picture of the series. I was tempted to back England here but I have to admit that strong record South Africa have here is enough to put me off even though I don’t see the home side being that good. I’ll take one elsewhere though.
That is the performance of Kagiso Rabada, a man who I expect to have a decent match here. The last time he faced England on this ground he took 13 wickets. He also has five wickets here in two of the other three matches so SuperSport Park is a ground he clearly likes. This England side are there to get stuck into up front with the ball but he’ll be potent with the new ball too and he can bat and field. I think when you add his performance up he’ll go past 111.5pts in this match.
Tips
Back K.Rabada’s Performance – Over 111.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
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