South Africa and Sri Lanka conclude their brief Test series this week when the two sides head to Gqeberha for the second match of the scheduled two, one where the Proteas will be looking to hang onto their lead.
South Africa dominated the opening match of the series and know that if they avoid defeat in this second game they will claim the series but they will want the WTC points that come with winning. Sri Lanka have to win to avoid losing the series.
South Africa
There is a feeling that South Africa are in a bit of a transition phase in red ball cricket and that is fair enough with some senior players having moved on, but the one thing any South Africa side will be expected to be is competitive, especially on home soil. They were more than that in the opening game and if there is more to come from them here then they are entitled to be a handful on a ground which should suit them as much as the first game.
Clearly the opening match was won by the bowlers in the first innings. You don’t lose a match in which you have bowled the opposition out for less than 50 so in a way we will find out a lot more about them here. The good thing was that they didn’t let Sri Lanka get back into the match once they had them beat. They won by a decent margin to set them up nicely for this second game and the remainder of the cricket to come in their home summer.
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka had been playing some decent Test cricket in recent times, hence why they are still in the mix to compete in the World Test Championship final next summer, but they were given a reminder that in this format one bad innings and set you back a long way. To be fair to Sri Lanka, there wasn’t time for a warm up match and they probably got the rougher end of the conditions but they will know that they underperformed with the bat in that first game.
Clearly they will be looking for a lot more with the bat in this match but we only have to look back to the English summer to know that once they have got themselves acclimatised to the conditions that they are more than capable of picking up unlikely wins on their travels. To be fair to Sri Lanka, their bowlers had them in the game until that horrendous first batting effort so if they can bowl like that again here there is no reason why they can’t improve enough to put up a big challenge.
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Team News
South Africa have already named their XI for this match and will make two changes with Ryan Rickelton and Dane Paterson coming in for Wiaan Mulder and the injured George Coetzee. Rickleton is expected to bat down the order.
Sri Lanka appear to be looking to the age old thing that teams do that when the batters mess things up they alter the bowling unit. Milan Rathnayake is the bowler who could come into the side with Prabath Jayasuriya the man potentially making way.
Betting
Although I’m expecting a better display from Sri Lanka in this match I still expect South Africa to win it but there is a lot of talk that the pitch could deteriorate throughout the game which means that you would want to win the toss and bat first and take advantage so I will leave the match betting alone until we know who it is who has got the coin on their side. On a tricky pitch though you would imagine Marco Jansen would continue to be a handful.
He has a performance line of 121.5 which feels like it is achievable regardless of the state of the pitch when you consider that he has just taken 11 wickets in the opening game. That alone equates to 220 points but we know that Jansen is more than handy with the bat too so we might well get this line covered even if the tall leftie only picks up five wickets, something his bounce could easily do, especially if the pitch does allow him to be even more of a threat. I like the over on his performance.
Tips
Back M.Jansen’s Performance – Over 121.5 points for a 3/10 stake at 1.83 with Bet365
