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SA vs SL 2024/25, SA vs SL 1st Test Match Preview

Vaseline November 27, 2024

Big picture: two teams on an upward trajectory

Sri Lanka’s men are third in the World Test Championship rankings, with a win percentage of 55.56, and South Africa are hot on their heels with 54.17. Both are within striking distance of a place in the top two, for which there are currently five serious contenders; India, Australia and New Zealand are the other three.

Normally that’s enough to make this worth watching (there are distractions like a Border-Gavaskar Trophy, plus a New Zealand-England series elsewhere, apparently), but there are even more layers of dramatic potential here . Sri Lanka, if you recall, is the only Asian team to ever beat South Africa in a series at home, back in 2019. Seven players from this current Sri Lanka team had played a part in that 2-0 sweep.

But while the Sri Lanka team from that 2019 tour was held together by hope and kinesiology tape, this one seems to be building towards something? (We ask cautiously, as this is an odd claim for Sri Lankan teams over the past decade.) So far this year they have won six Tests, the most impressive of which was their win at The Oval. And they have what is starting to look more and more like a bowling outfit. Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando and Lahiru Kumara are the likely starters. But they have others like Kasun Rajitha and Milan Rathnayake who have also performed well in foreign conditions.

South Africa, meanwhile, finds itself on its own. They had sent what amounted to an E-team to New Zealand for a sticking session in February, but since then their big dogs in the XI have won away games in the West Indies and Bangladesh. They are now at the start of their home summer, so presumably they are brimming with confidence. The only downside in all this is that they haven’t enjoyed playing at Kingsmead for the last fifteen years. Since the start of 2010, they have lost five games of the two they have won at this venue. While the South African fast markets enjoy the extra bounce that their home surfaces usually provide, the coastal venues, and this one in particular, tend to play slower and lower in comparison.

Moreover, South African captain Temba Bavuma has said that they will not be asking for made-to-order green tops on this tour, which will especially please Sri Lanka’s batsmen. That doesn’t mean there won’t be any bounce or movement. South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad said he expected “a good pace” at Kingsmead. But expect the surface to be exposed mainly in the later days. South Africa have some capable seamers, but their spin attack will also be tested here.

Form guide

South Africa WWWDL
Sri Lanka WWWLL (Last five completed matches, most recent first)

In the spotlight: Keshav Maharaj and Kamindu Mendis

No bowler in this match knows the Kingsmead surface better than Keshav Maharaj. Born in Durban, he played all his first-class cricket for the KwaZulu Natal Dolphins and averaged 21.52 in tests at the venue. Although he now has 54 Tests on his CV, he has played just three in his home city. Partly this has to do with Covid. But one of those matches was against Sri Lanka, during that 2019 tour, and he took three wickets for 87 runs in that match. This doesn’t sound like it was particularly impressive, but when one of the greatest innings of all time is played by the opponent, it’s not terrible. He is also now five years into his development and should be in his spin-bowling prime at 34. How Maharaj fares against Sri Lanka’s batsmen will go a long way in deciding this series, one suspects.

When will the Kamindu Mendis fever dream ending? Eight tests under his belt, he has five hundred – in three different countries – and in September became the fastest player to reach 1,000 test runs in 74 years. That average of 91.27 has to come down at some point, right? But then people said that about him when he was in England in August. His average then was only in the 80s. Although he is now an all-format player for Sri Lanka, Kamindu’s skill is limited to Tests for now – he is only a decent white-ball player, although the fact he can bowl with both arms probably is more useful in those formats. Can he take this rocket start to a testing career to a whole new continent? In any case, there has never been a Sri Lankan batsman who came out of the gate so hot.

Team news: Sri Lanka thinks about attack

*South Africa named their

South Africa: 1 Aiden Markram, 2 Tony de Zorzi, 3 Tristan Stubbs, 4 Temba Bavuma (capt.), 5 David Bedingham, 6 Kyle Verreynne (wk), 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Wiaan Mulder, 9 Gerald Coetzee, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 11 Kagiso Rabada

Seven Sri Lanka players have been in Durban for at least two weeks, and they should have a full complement of cricketers to choose from. They have to make decisions on the bowling front. They will probably go for Milan Rathnayake because of the batting value he adds. But will they choose Vishwa Fernando or Lahiru Kumara? Vishwa brings in the left-arm corner and has had success in Durban. But Kumara has the pace to trouble batters.

Sri Lanka (possibly): 1 Dimuth Karuanaratne, 2 Pathum Nissanka, 3 Dinesh Chandimal, 4 Angelo Mathews, 5 Kamindu Mendis, 6 Dhananjaya de Silva (captain), 7 Kusal Mendis (wk), 8 Milan Rathnayake, 9 Prabath Jayasuriya, 10 Asitha Fernando, 11 Lahiru Kumara/Vishwa Fernando

Field and conditions: A wet start to the Test?

Some speed and bounce is probably likely at first, but as the sun hits this Kingsmead pitch you can expect it to get a little lower and slower. However, sunshine could be in short supply early in this match, with showers forecast for Wednesday and cloudy conditions forecast for Thursday.

Statistics and trivia

Maharaj’s best ever figures came against Sri Lanka: his 9 for 129 in the first innings at the SSC in Colombo in 2018.
Kamindu Mendis’s away average so far, over nine innings, is 79.25. Five of those knocks came in England, where he averages 53.40, his lowest in any country.
In the nine Tests these teams have played since the start of 2015, South Africa have won five and Sri Lanka four. All but two of these tests were in South Africa.
If Prabath Jayasuriya gets three wickets in Durban – his 17th Test – he will become the joint second-fastest bowler to reach 100 Test wickets, behind George Lohmann, who made his debut in the 19th century. Of the players who have been active since 1950, only Yasir Shah has done so in 17 Tests.
Lahiru Kumara is also approaching 100 layoffs. He would be the fifth fast bowler from Sri Lanka to reach the milestone, behind Chaminda Vaas, Lasith Malinga, Dilhara Fernando and Suranga Lakmal.

Quotes

“Neil (McKenzie)) was good. He was with us for a week. It was a good week and we got some runs from him. We went to a lot of batting sessions with him. He’s a very good cricketer and a very good cricketer . open person, so we took a lot of his information.
Dhanajaya da Silva on how SL picked the brains of one of the best South Africans, who consulted with them

“The team is as ready as possible. We had a good camp last week at the HPC (High Performance Centre). We came here to Kingsmead and rested as best as we could. There is a There is a lot of excitement among the group. We have four games left in our test championship, and every game is as important as a final, so the boys are as ready as I said. And I’m happy to be back with the team are I think you should see some good things again from the guys.”
Temba Bavuma about being back with the team

*1100hrs: Story updated after South Africa named their XI

Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer at ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf