LIVE | Proteas v Sri Lanka 2nd ODI – 4 September 2021

Victory in the second ODI on Saturday would give Sri Lanka victory back-to-back ODIs for the first time in their 12 matches this year and at the same time claim an unbeatable 2-0 lead in their best-of-three series against South Africa.

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The first ball is due to be bowled at 11:00 SA time.

When analysing the previous match, Sri Lanka appeared to have won the game in their last 60 balls faced when batting, striking 90 runs compared to the 76 South Africa accrued over the same period. Well-disciplined bowling also played its part, of course, with the Sri Lankans conceding only four extras to the 23 that the Proteas bowlers gave away. When considering the 14-run margin, these seemingly minor differences added up dramatically.

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The other impressive aspect of Sri Lanka’s victory on Thursday was winning despite taking only five South African wickets, with Chamika Karunaratne, Wanindu Hasaranga, Praveen Jayawickrama and Dhananjaya de Silva all combining for 31 overs at an economy of just 4.90rpo. The result of that effort meant that South Africa required 7.94 runs per over off the other 19 overs bowled – a task that proved just too much.

South Africa could potentially find themselves missing out on qualifying automatically for the 2023 ODI World Cup when considering their current 11th place on the Super League table (just 24 points), ranked above only Netherlands and Zimbabwe. Their hopes of a direct path into the main tournament (needing to finish in the top eight) is already looking a concern. If things weren’t worrying enough already, captain Temba Bavuma is out of the rest of the tour with a fractured thumb. Keshav Maharaj will step in and skipper the ODIs.

Prior to the first ODI, South Africa had won their previous seven ODIs against Sri Lanka and 11 of the last 13 head-to-head matches across all formats, meaning there is strong reason to believe the visitors can turn things around quickly. A portion of that improvement could be expected to come from Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje, who produced fairly poor efforts of 2/66 (from nine overs) and 0/69 (from 10 overs), respectively, in the previous game.

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PLAYERS TO WATCH

Chamika Karunaratne is currently averaging 49.33 with the bat from his seven ODI innings, including two unbeaten scores of 40+, and might think he should be batting higher than number eight.

For the tourists, the canny Andile Phehlukwayo has claimed at least one wicket in nine of his last ten ODIs. The only failure came in his previous outing, when he finished with the figures of 0/37 from five overs.

STAT ATTACK

Sri Lanka have won the last three ODIs against South Africa played at home.

The average first innings score at this venue over the last six ODIs is 280.

Sri Lanka have posted an opening partnership worth at least 35 runs in each of their last five home ODIs.

Sri Lanka’s Avishka Fernando averages 52.55 in matches played at home which is considerably greater than his overall career number (39.42).

CONDITIONS

The same pitch will be used today and thus slower bowling is expected to be advantaged once again. Sri Lanka had the advantage of five spin options in the previous game – a fantastic asset to have as any player on an off day can be covered. As far as the overheads are concerned, the forecast looks reasonably promising. There is a chance of showers and thunderstorms throughout the afternoon and evening, but they’re likely to be as brief as the one that stopped the first ODI for just 25 minutes.

So what can we expect from both teams today? Sri Lanka have no reason to “fix what ain’t broke”, while South Africa have to find a new opening batsman and a new captain. Temba Bavuma suffered a fractured right thumb and has been ruled out of both the ODI and T20I series. We do know that Keshav Maharaj will skipper the remaining two ODIs, and Markram looks the obvious choice to join Malan at the top of the batting order.