South Africa start their tour of Sri Lanka on Thursday when the two sides meet in the first Test of the two gets underway in Galle. This short series gets the Proteas back into the longer form of the game and will prepare them for some big series to come.
Sri Lanka have the chance to show their worth in home conditions over the next couple of weeks which should act as a positive deterrent from the controversies of what happened in the West Indies.
Sri Lanka
It is easy to forget that Sri Lanka actually levelled that series against the odds and while the pitches here will play a lot different to the ones in the Caribbean they should take a lot of confidence from the way they came back out there. They won the final Test without Dinesh Chandimal which may be significant as he is unlikely to play any role in this series.
You would think Sri Lanka will be better suited to their own pitches with the ball which should make them even more competitive here but even at home you wonder if their batting is too flaky to be successful. We will certainly find out just how good this young Sri Lanka side is in these two matches that is for sure.
South Africa
This will be the first time we will have seen South Africa on the cricket field since the fall out from that ill-fated series with Australia in the winter so the immediate thing they will need to avoid is being rusty. In a two match series every innings is vital so they can’t afford to start slowly. They have had a warm up match but quite how much they will have got out of it remains to be seen.
The one thing we know about South Africa these days is that they have a bowling attack for every condition but even then that attack is likely to be tested here. What they no longer have is a genuine all-rounder that they can rely on to take wickets when their main bowlers get tired. The flip side of that is they bat pretty deep.
Team News
It appears as though Dinesh Chandimal will be unavailable for this match but Sri Lanka will have Rangana Herath back after he missed the end of the West Indies series with a split webbing. Angelo Mathews is also back too.
South Africa are set to bring Dale Steyn back into their ranks after he proved his form playing for Hampshire recently. Temba Bavuma is to come into the middle order to fill the void left by AB de Villiers.
Galle International Stadium
There have been 30 previous Test matches on this ground with Sri Lanka having a very good record here. They have 17 wins to seven defeats with six draws in that time. South Africa have the set of a win, a draw and a loss from their three matches at this venue.
The wicket here is like a lot of sub-continent ones in that the first innings should be really good for batting but the longer the match goes on the more the bowlers, especially the spinners, will come into the game.
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Betting
I’m not going to get massively involved in this series but I can’t avoid backing South Africa to win this first match. There has been a little bit of rain around on each day leading up to this first Test so there might well be some juice in the wicket early on which may well suit South Africa.
I say that because it won’t matter whether they bat first or bowl first there should be something in the deck for their whole attack and you would expect their quality to show through. As long as South Africa play the spinners well they look to have more than enough to get the job done here.
Tips
Back South Africa to win 1st Test for a 4/10 stake at 2.40 with Bet365
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