The one sided dominance South Africa have had on Sri Lanka in the ODI series between the two showed no signs of ending on Saturday when the home side won another low key match to go 3-0 up and seal the series with two matches still to play.
The first of those comes in Cape Town on Tuesday and offers Sri Lanka the first of two chances to get something out of this series. For South Africa these next two matches give them the chance to try and build some real momentum ahead of their tour of New Zealand next week.
South Africa
Once again the third match of the series was made easy for the Proteas because of their bowling attack which has so much dominance over the Sri Lankan batting line up it is hard to believe. Their batsmen haven’t been under any pressure at any stage in the series because of how much authority the bowling has had and that has shown.
In these next two matches South Africa will be hunting the number one spot in the ODI rankings and with the likes of AB de Villiers coming back to form with the bat you would think the home side could really go to town on this Sri Lanka outfit.
Sri Lanka
As we said before the previous match it is clear that this is about building for the future for Sri Lanka but you can never forget the here and now and their senior players are simply not helping in that. They have offered little in their specialist roles and there doesn’t look to be much in the way of fight from them which is the most disappointing thing.
Credit should go to their bowlers for continuing to toil away even though they are on a hiding to nothing but they simply don’t possess enough danger to get through this South Africa batting line up consistently or to stop them scoring at a quicker rate than they need.
Team News
It remains to be seen whether South Africa will make changes to their side now that the series is won. With another tour coming up and a Champions Trophy after that those in the side won’t want to lose their spot.
Sri Lanka could make changes but so much is wrong with them it is hard to truly know what else they can try. They may send the same XI out and hope they can perform better.
Newlands
This will be the 39th ODI to be held at this picturesque ground. South Africa have made this place a real fortress with 27 wins and just five defeats from their 32 matches here. Sri Lanka have a win and a defeat from their two games on the ground but they did win the deciding T20 here a couple of weeks ago.
It is usually a good cricket wicket here with plenty in it for the bowlers but when they get in the batsmen can score and take advantage of the relatively short boundaries by modern standards. The pitch in the T20 international here was good so everyone should get something from it.
Betting
Unless complacency creeps in or an eye to the future takes over I fully expect South Africa to win this match but those two factors are in play so at 1/10 I think I will let them win rather than chase small amounts or risk a big handicap.
I’m not going to go too mad with these last two ODIs. It is well known I don’t like dead rubbers from a betting point of view but given that Niroshan Dickwella served me well on this ground in the T20 I’m going to run with him again.
William Hill have matched him up against Dinesh Chandimal for this match and while Chandimal is a dangerous one day player he looks restrained by the burden of expectation and his form is in a really bad place with a top score of just 36 from 12 innings on this tour. Dickwella looked really good in compiling his 70 in Johannesburg and played a great knock for 68 in the T20 here. I think he can have Chandimal’s number here.
Tips
VOID – Back N.Dickwella to beat D.Chandimal for a 4/10 stake at 1.83 with William Hill
Back him here:
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