Green pitch set to test wounded Sri Lanka

Match facts

January 2-6, 2017Start time 1030 local (0830 GMT)

Big Picture

Table Mountain looms over the Newlands ground, grand and forbidding, with sheer crags in its higher reaches, and rugged pine forests on its lower spines. It imposes itself upon the city. It leaves you daunted. You wonder how on earth it was ever climbed.

Sri Lanka will know the feeling as they prepare to play in Cape Town, just two days after the 206-run loss at Port Elizabeth. They only have one day to practice, New Year’s Eve having been a travel day. And now they’ve arrived at the ground for the first time to find rivulets of grass running the length of the pitch. Cape Town may be one of the most stunning places on the cricket circuit, but it will not be an easy venue to play in.

It is South Africa’s seam attack that will be most encouraged by the colour of the Newlands surface. Over the past year, Kagiso Rabada, Kyle Abbott and Vernon Philander have all averaged less than 24. They moved the ball for longer than the Sri Lanka quicks in Port Elizabeth, and were far more consistent in their lines and lengths. If the venom ever leaves this pitch, they are capable of creating immense pressure regardless. Sri Lanka reflected in Port Elizabeth that they played poor shots, but South Africa’s attack had also forced them into taking risks.

The hosts’ top order also outguns Sri Lanka’s. Hashim Amla may not have made a Test half-century in his eight most recent innings, but was positive and fluent for much of his second-innings 48 in Port Elizabeth, and has three 40-plus scores in his last five innings, in any case. The others have been in such form in recent Tests that it seems a pity someone will have to be …

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