The traditional South African New Year Test match gets underway on Monday when South Africa look to secure their series with Sri Lanka when the two sides meet in Cape Town.
South Africa were comfortably winners of the opening match in the end although Sri Lanka put up more of a fight than they were expected to. Sri Lanka need to take that fight and turn it into a victory here to level the series heading into the final match.
South Africa
The home side will have been delighted with their performance in the Boxing Day Test match. They controlled the game from start to finish and were able to do exactly what they wanted for the entire four days. The benefit of that of course is that they will be well rested heading into this one so another strong performance is expected.
If the South African’s do have a concern it might come in the form of Hashim Amla’s form not being the best. They’ll get away with that here but with the cricket coming up they could do with their gun batsman finding the form we know he can produce. The bowling attack looked very strong even without Dale Steyn.
Sri Lanka
Although they lost in Port Elizabeth and the margin of the defeat was quite hefty Sri Lanka will be quite pleased with their performance. They won’t like the fact they lost of course but they fought hard and had they won the toss things might have been different. We did see their big problem though and that is their seamers being expensive.
On the plus side the top order by and large delivered some positive performances and had they not suffered those two crazy run outs in the second innings who knows what they would have produced. There was certainly enough in their performance in that match to take encouragement from going into this one.
Team News
There is no need for South Africa to make any changes for this match and none are anticipated. They will win the series before changing things unless there is a late illness or injury.
Sri Lanka might want to rotate their bowlers. Dushmantha Chameera is just coming back from injury and he was expensive in Port Elizabeth so he might be given a blow. Lahiru Kumara is on the sideline waiting to come into the side.
Newlands
There have been 53 Test matches on this ground throughout the test of time and you have to say it isn’t South Africa’s best venue. They have 22 wins to 20 defeats with 11 draws but that is still much better than Sri Lanka who have lost all three games they have played on this picturesque ground.
With the altitude and the atmosphere the bowlers are always in the game on this ground but batsmen do get value for their shots which makes watching matches here quite enjoyable. The wicket is said to be full of grass so expect the seamers to enjoy themselves initially.
Betting
As with the first game there isn’t a lot that interests me heading into this match but the bet I took in that opening Test still has plenty of legs in it so I’m going to take the performance of Vernon Philander here.
The line has moved up a little and is now 129.5 but that still doesn’t look high enough to me. Philander has an excellent record on this ground. He has 31 wickets from six matches and he averages 38 with the bat here. He bowled well in the first Test and I’m expecting these conditions to suit him here too so I like the overs on his performance once again.
Tips
WON – Back V.Philander’s Performance – Over 129.5pts for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
Back him here:
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