How does Sri Lanka bat so well in South Africa?

[Vilander]

Sl smashes SA usually.. but yeah doing well in SA is something. 

[Frustrated]

If I m not wrong, SL have won all their last 5 tests encounters against SA.  (Couple of them in SA itself).   It seems SA hv developed a mental block against SL recently.    Not taking any credit away from SL. 

[GeeGaw]

1 hour ago, Lone Wolf said:

Aussies are going to massacre these Pansies in February next year..  Oh man..  Saffers will be butchered.  It won't be pretty

SA whitewashed AUS in three ODI series back in March.  The matches weren’t particularly close.

[GeeGaw]

dp.

Edited December 26, 2020 by GeeGaw

[nitinbwj]

2 hours ago, Sandeep99 said:

No guts no glory. They’re not afraid to play their shots and it is not at all reckless. Some amazing shots through the day. I’ve not seen a single bad ball go unpunished when I watched. We don’t have Chandimal, Perera, Dhananjaya type stroke makers in Indian team. Beautiful to watch. 

No superstars and attitude. Everyone plays their natural game. Even their tail looks solid. They are 340-6. Must be the best they have batted on a first day in SA.

[Lone Wolf]

2 hours ago, SK_IH said:

Last year in Pakistan. They have been highly mediocre since 2015.  

Oh yes they did..  Pakistan played well then. 

Edited December 26, 2020 by Lone Wolf

[Lone Wolf]

1 hour ago, GeeGaw said:

SA whitewashed AUS in three ODI series back in March.  The matches weren’t particularly close.

Then lost T20 series..  Who cares about that anyway..  SA have a poor record against Aussies at home in Test cricket.  They stand no chance.  Even Poms thrashed them 3-1 last year in their own den.  Aussies will do worse. 

[Suhaan]

2 hours ago, Lone Wolf said:

Kudos to SLC that they brought a guy like Mickey at the helm..  

Huge Kudos to them on that alone

 

[aditya19]

They have become like bangladesh.. might surprise once a while but mediocre overall

[Tyron]

Sri Lanka batting is actually very strong. Their bowling suck 

 

Their batting in Sena is better than ours except in Australia. 

[Franco Vazquez]

Tbh even Shaw would score a hundred against this SA bowling lineup

[rollingstoned]

The wanderers and centurion pitches and ground both are favourable for quick scoring but good bowling is equally rewarded. And yes sri lanka are not an attritional batting side. I'm impressed with the back foot stroke play they are capable of though. K mendis, gunathilaka, Angelo perera, chandimal, dhananjay etc are all talented. 

Edited December 27, 2020 by rollingstoned

[addicted4444]

No one yet has mentioned the real answer here. 
 

Sri Lankans grow up playing cricket on pitches that are extremely fast bowler friendly. Their pitches behave similar to concrete pitches in India, and their weather is largely wet and damp, which means they grow up being extremely comfortable playing fast swinging bowling.
 

Sri Lanka is unique in that the conditions they play in in their formative years are closer to English conditions than sub continent conditions. If it wasn’t for the fact that they had 2 extremely unique spinners who have been successful everywhere, it would have been obvious Sri Lanka is more of a fast bowling nation than a spin nation. 
 

And that’s why their batsmen are really good against swing and fast bowling. Because they grow up playing it. 
 

South Africa’s problem against Sri Lanka is that they have never had decent spin bowling. An all pace/swing attack will never trouble Sri Lankans. Australia has always had at least one great spinner, as has England whenever they’ve been good. 
 

it’s hard to think of a great SA spinner. 

[R!TTER]

3 hours ago, addicted4444 said:

Sri Lankans grow up playing cricket on pitches that are extremely fast bowler friendly. Their pitches behave similar to concrete pitches in India, and their weather is largely wet and damp, which means they grow up being extremely comfortable playing fast swinging bowling.

Oh really, then how come they get absolutely smashed in Oz or even Eng? They have arguably the worst record for any team in Oz, except thy neighbors! Their biggest triumph came against a team which wasn't 100% at that time, full credits to them especially with the way they actually won chasing against SA back then, though the team we or Oz faced just a year back was actually much stronger especially with AB in there