Tall order for both teams at bowlers’ graveyard

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Colombo

All that is not flat about the pitch at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo are the graves bowlers have dug for themselves here.

It is a merciless ground for anyone, particularly foreigners, who would dare bowl a ball in anger on a surface the colour of a faded manilla envelope and half as exciting as an empty one.

The last three tests at SSC have been drawn, as have half the previous dozen. The other six were won by Sri Lanka. SA will hope to end that run of nothingness for visiting sides in the second test, which starts today at SSC.

Orders do not come taller for cricket teams, but SA’s victory by 153 runs in the first test in Galle on Sunday in conditions that were nothing like what they would have preferred - but not as benign as what they will expect at SSC - offers reasons for them to be cheerful. To borrow from Frank Sinatra, if they can make it there, they can make it anywhere.

SA did not have to think too far out of their box to win: only four of the 20 wickets escaped the clutches of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. That did not surprise Hashim Amla.

“The fast bowlers have managed to do the job for us wherever we are in the world,” Amla said yesterday.

He was less used to going into a match in the Asian sub-continent as part of the favoured team.

“It’s strange,” Amla admitted. “But, although we are pleased with our performance (in Galle), we’re coming into this match with a clean slate.”

That would be a good idea. Only advocates of cheating could argue that Vernon Philander being found guilty of ball-tampering in Galle did not put a significant dent in SA’s success.

Sri Lanka’s captain, Angelo Mathews, did not want to go there. But there was nowhere to hide from the advantage that the South Africans enjoyed because of the prodigious reverse swing their bowlers obtained.

“Even on that flat wicket, their seamers really troubled us,” Mathews said. “They bowled really well.

“They were reverse swinging the ball, but we have faced that before; for instance, when we have played against Pakistan.”

That said, Mathews was convinced that, “we didn’t play good cricket; that’s the only reason for our loss”.

Now he is under pressure to avoid Sri Lanka’s first series loss at home since September, 2011, when Australia beat them 1-0 in a three-match rubber - the Lankans’ only defeat in their last 13 series on the island.

For Mathews to have to turn things around at a venue where, if the opposition gets on top, winning is about as easy as finding a snowman on the steamy streets of Colombo is almost unfair.

“It is generally a very flat wicket, although there is a bit of life in the mornings,” Mathews said. “But, whatever wicket we play on, we’ve got to find a way to beat them.”

Both teams will have to pay careful attention to the balance of their attack to give themselves the best chance of taking control.

For SA, that could mean leaving out Philander, their least effective seamer in Galle, in favour of Wayne Parnell or Kyle Abbott. Parnell’s relative fragility will have to be weighed against the variation he offers as a left-armer, his aggression, and his batting ability. Abbott’s threatening bounce could disappear at SSC.

The Lankans, meanwhile, have talked themselves into a tangle about wicketkeeper Dinesh Chandimal. First, they said he had been dropped and sent on the A tour to England. Uncapped Niroshan Dickwella had been summoned from that tour and thrust into the test squad. Yesterday, the story had changed. Dickwella was here, but Chandimal would remain with the squad.