The Stats Corner: South Africa's Bowling vs. Sri Lanka's Batting

By Dominic Machado

One of the major reasons for Sri Lanka’s strong performance over the last two cycles has been their batting lineup. A mixture of experience and youth, grit and flair has contributed to the side’s successes at home and abroad. Every batter in the top 6 likely to start in South Africa averages in excess of 39.6 over the course of those two cycles. 

However, as good as they have been, the upcoming series presents a number of challenges. Most significantly, South Africa’s bowlers have been very good at home in the recent past. Since 2016, South Africa are 26-10-2 at home in 38 matches, with their bowlers taking an average of 17.8 wickets per test at a miserly average of 22.38. And strikingly, they’ve been even better over the last three years after the retirements of Steyn, Philander, and Morkel. They have gone 8-2 while averaging 18.9 wickets per test at an average of 18.84. 

In other words, South Africa have usually taken all twenty wickets for not very many runs in matches when playing at home. And there is no reason to believe that they are not a threat to do this yet again. They have a strong bowling lineup, with talented youngsters like Marco Jansen, Wiaan Mulder, and Gerald Coetzee (all of whom average under 25) and the wily veteran presence of Keshav Maharaj. But the standout of the bunch is, of course, Kagiso Rabada. His record at home is phenomenal. In 33 matches at home, he has taken 184 wickets at an average 19.07, with 10 5-fers and 4 10-fers. Oh yeah, and he strikes at an otherworldly rate of once every 33 balls.

Furthermore, Sri Lanka’s batters have generally struggled in South Africa. Despite their miraculous win against South Africa in 2019, none of the Sri Lankan batters slated to start who have toured the country previously boast good or even decent numbers. Of the top 7, only Dimuth has scored a hundred in South Africa, while DdS has the best average in the country at an underwhelming 32.66, to say nothing of Kusal Mendis’ five ducks in fourteen innings.

Winning in South Africa will take a special performance from this Sri Lanka batting unit. While the South African specific stats may not be on their side, one hopes that they will be able draw from their numerous successes over the last previous two World Test Championships and produce a batting display for the history books.