At the Gqeberha Test
Excerpts from the notebook of the SABC's statistician
Day 1
The Sri Lankans have a track record of fighting back after indifferent starts:
They lost the first two Tests decisively in England this year, before taking the third by eight wickets.
In 2018, in the Caribbean, they lost in Port of Spain before winning in Barbados.
After defeat by Australia in the First Test at Galle in 2022, they triumphed in the second.
There are plenty of veterans of those comebacks in this squad.
Sri Lanka is one of only two Asian teams to have won a Test at Gqeberha—that being the 2018/19 series decider.
St George’s Park is not what it was. Average for spin bowling:
2000s: 39.00
2010s: 34.89
2020s: 21.30
Seam this decade averages 41.81!
The hosts have won ten here, losing six, since readmission.
Six of the last ten Test teams batting first at St George’s have scored 400+. This includes the two most recent:
South Africa: 453 v. Bangladesh, Apr 2022
England: 499/9d, Jan 2020
The average first-innings score in that period is 379, making it by some distance South Africa’s battingest ground.
The average winning score in that period is as high as 415.
It’s also the only home venue at which the Proteas have posted a 400+ total batting first (as they are today) in the 2020s: their all-out 453 v Bangladesh in April 2022.
Tony De Zorzi is out first ball. He’s struggled at home in his unfledged career:
Home: 166 runs @ 16.60
Away: 411 @ 58.71
But his lbw is a familiar mode of dimissal at this ground:
Bowled/lbw at St George’s: 38.04%
Rest of SA: 26.10%
South Africa’s opening pair has now suffered a single-figure separation six times in its last sixteen innings.
Asitha Fernando’s Test strike rate is 43.97—the best-ever by a Sri Lankan. (Lasith Malinga is a distant second, with 51.57.) He’s in third place among Asian fast bowlers:
Waqar 43.49
Bumrah 43.65
The dismissal of De Zorzi extends Asitha’s remarkable record against left-handers:
Average v. lefties: 18.77
Average v. righties: 30.38
Ryan Rickelton is in at number three, hoping to make that position his own. It’s up for grabs:
SA average at no. 3 (1992-2017): 44.62
SA average at no. 3 (2018-2024): 26.45
Not one year since 2017 has the average touched thirty.
There have been just two centuries at first drop since 2018:
Stubbs’s 106 v. Bangladesh, Chattogram, Oct 2024
De Bruyn’s 101 v. Sri Lanka Colombo (SSC), Jul 2018
To put this into perspective, the South African number 3 averaged 2+ centuries a year in the two decades prior to 2018.
Markram is bowled by Lahiru Kumara, having fallen in a similar way to Vishwa in the second innings at Durban. He’s now been either bowled or lbw in seven of his last ten innings. (The historical average is half that.)
Bavuma comes to the crease, and there’s no overstating his importance:
Although Test batting averages this decade are the lowest they’ve been since the 1950s—
1950s: 27.38
1960s: 30.81
1970s: 30.76
1980s: 30.45
1990s: 29.45
2000s: 32.02
2010s: 31.12
2020s: 28.81
—Bavuma’s average this decade is 47.09, compared to 31.24 in the 2010s (when only Kusal Perera (31.13) had an averager average). That’s better than
Labuschagne (46.12)
Babar (44.90)
Pant (43.10)
Smith (43.05)
Bavuma faced 345 balls in the First Test of this series—the most in a Test for South Africa in the last seven years.
He also holds second place: 344 balls v. West Indies, Johannesburg, Mar 2023.
It’s interesting to discover that this success is built on his Bradmanesque form against slow bowling:
Average v. spin this decade: 81.14.
Average v. pace this decade: 36.24
Only Joe Root (137/0) and Saud Shakeel (100/0) have greater dominance over Sri Lanka’s spinner, Prabath Jayasuriya, than Bavuma (82/0) in Test cricket.
Sri Lanka’s pace bowlers have taken 106 wickets in 2024 at an average of 23.36. That’s both their highest tally and their lowest average in a calendar year.
Rickelton’s half-century takes 121 balls. That’s the seventh time in first-class cricket he’s taken 120+. But he can go through the gears:
first-class strike rate to get to fifty: 52.26
first-class strike rate from fifty to a century: 70.29
But the return to the attack of Asitha, in place of the labouring Kumara, instantly makes Rickelton’s life more difficult:
Kumara v. lefties: 59.25
Asitha v. lefties: 18.77
Coming into this series, the Proteas’ fourth wicket had yielded just one century in its last 45 partnerships:
Bedingham and Elgar: 131 v. India, Centurion, Dec 2023
Now they’ve had two in three:
Bavuma and Stubbs: 249 in the First Test
Bavuma and Rickelton: 100* in this one
Dhananjaya de Silva comes on to bowl. He achieved his best match figures (5/51) in his last Test on this ground…
Rickelton reaches his century, so that South Africa’s eighteen this decade belong to twelve different players:
In the 2010s they had 103 centuries by fifteen players (a ratio of 6.87). In the 2000s it was 121 by sixteen (7.56).
The average day-one total at St George’s (last 20 years): 273 for eight.
Today’s total: 269 for seven.
Day 2
This is the first time Kyle Verreynne and Kagiso Rabada have batted together, and they’re already within sight of South Africa’s ninth-wicket record v. Sri Lanka:
66 by Duminy and Morkel at Galle, July 2014.
Which is, incidentally, exactly the amount Verreyne and Piedt put on in Dhaka last month.
I’ve no sooner completed my research into that last titbit than the partnership terminates at 56, Asitha cleaning up Kagiso Rabada for his 250th first-class wicket. The statistician’s labour is so often wasted.
I perk up again with the arrival of South Africa’s number eleven:
Dane Paterson has scored no fewer than 1,168 (70%) of his 1,678 first-class runs in boundaries.
His proportion in sixes is 29 per cent—almost certainly the highest ever recorded.
The man formerly believed to hold this record was “Bomber” Wells, the Gloucestershire and Nottinghamshire slogger, whose six percentage was “just” 25.
Kyle Verreynne reaches his third Test hundred—his twelfth in first-class cricket. Of those latter, this is the fastest (37 balls) he’s advanced from fifty to a century, and the fourth time he’s made that advance at better than a run a ball.
Highest Test scores by South African wicketkeepers v. Sri Lanka:
105*: Verreynne
101: De Kock, Cape Town, 2017
92: Boucher, Cape Town 2001
The second innings at St George’s is traditionally the most difficult for batsmen. The trend has been especially pronounced of late:
1st-innings average: 39.73 since 2010 (32.26 overall)
2nd-innings average: 22.37 (23.94)
3rd-innings average: 26.68 (24.83)
4th-innings average: 24.33 (26.78)
Sri Lanka’s openers are in desperate form:
They’ve not had one fifty partnership in their last eleven attempts.
Their average in that time is just 14.72.
You have to go back to April last year, in Galle, for their last century stand.
Nor is the present a forgiving proposition. In 28 innings since 2022, there’s been just one opening stand of fifty or more against South Africa (53 by Kraigg Brathwaite and Mikyle Louis in Port of Spain, August 2024). The average is just 13.26—the lowest against any opponent in that time.
And yet Dimuth Karunaratne has now gone 77 innings since his last duck—the tenth-longest such streak ever recorded, and the third-longest among Sri Lankans:
Sangakkara: 85 (2006-2011)
Mathews: 83 (2012-2017)
His partner Nissanka, now embarking on his 25th innings, holds a similar distinction: He’s never been dismissed without scoring. Before his first run here, he shared the record with Upul Chandana (24).
Paterson comes on to bowl at what is clearly his favourite of South Africa’s Test venues. His first-class average here is just 20.71, his strike rate 42.
He promised to do the grunt work in this Test, and he doesn’t make promises he cannot keep:
He holds the record for the longest spell by a South African seamer this decade (32 overs at Mount Maunganui in February).
He averages thirty overs a match in first-class cricket since 2022.
Sri Lanka’s opening stand reaches forty for the first time in a dozen attempts.
But Karunaratne is undone a run later, and Dinesh Chandimal replaces him:
Chandimal was was averaging 50.29 at number 5 (including seven centuries and one double), when the advent of Kamindu Mendis forced him up to number 3.
His average in this position (34.38) is the lowest for any in which he’s played more than one match.
And this innings is painfully scratchy. Only four of his runs—I make a note of this when it’s worth 28—have come in front of the wicket.
Bu the second-wicket stand reaches 109—the highest for Sri Lanka in South Africa.
It surpasses the 85 between Karunaratne and Thirimanne at the Wanderers in 2021.
In fact, this is the first time Sri Lanka has posted 100+ for either of the first two wickets in this country.
Day 3
Angelo Mathews averages 27.42 in South Africa—his lowest in any nation (min. 10 innings).
And yet he seems to be in good touch. Indeed, the contrast between Mathews and Chandimal couldn’t be greater. Whereas the latter barely got anything in front of square, the former (now on forty) has scored only a single run behind the wicket.
And with a lofted drive (perhaps his first false stroke), he moves to 8,000 Test runs:
He’s the third Sri Lankan to get there, after Sangakkara (12,400) and Jayawardene (11,814).
It’s taken him 205 innings (Sangakkara 152, Jayawardene 165).
Nissanka, on 89, has an attack of neurological flatulence, with the result that his first-wicket partner remains the only Sri Lankan opener to register a ton in South Africa (103 in Johannesburg, Jan 2021).
Rabada is bowling within himself, and it’s not hard to see why. This is the first time in two years he’s bowled 20+ overs in back-to-back innings.
Kamindu’s failure in Durban interrupted a run of eight Tests in which he’d scored at least a half-century. He was one short of the Sri Lankan record, which remains in Sangakarra’s hands.
Now he becomes the eighteenth Sri Lankan to register 1,000 Test runs in a calendar year. None of the others managed it at a better average (83.83).
His career average, currently 82.15, rises to a ridiculous 184.00 (!) against spin:
It’s the highest ever recorded (i.e., in matches for which we have data, beginning in the late Nineties). He’s fallen to it only thrice.
In second place is one of his opponents: Tristan Stubbs, with 132.00.
There’s an appeal or inquiry for “hit wicket” against Kamindu:
Angelo Mathews, his partner, was this dismissal’s last victim in Test Matches (v. Afghanistan in February).
We’ve had 164 in all, and Denis Compton accounts for five of them.
With the dismissal of Kumara, Paterson goes to
600 first-class wickets; and
his best Test figures, beating the three for 39 he took against New Zealand in Hamilton in February.
300 up for Sri Lanka—only the fifth time they’ve reached that landmark in their nineteen first innings here. They’ve never posted 400+, but they came within four at Centurion in December 2020.
This is just the third time since Shukri Conrad took over as South African coach that his team has conceded 300+:
New Zealand’s 511 at Mount Maunganui, February;
Bangladesh’s 307 at Mirpur in October; and
Sri Lanka’s still-growing tally today.
Another way of framing this statistic: They’ve bowled their opponents out for a sub-300 total in sixteen (84%) of their nineteen innings under Conrad.
Kusal Mendis falls, having been even scratchier than Chandimal. He was dropped twice in his sixteen—all of which were scored behind the wicket.
The Proteas’ lead is thirty. Since their readmission, only two teams have lost at St George’s Park after securing a first-innings advantage. Both of those, however, were larger than this one:
101 runs: SA v. Australia, 1997
68 runs: SA v. Sri Lanka, 2019
The Sri Lankans have won just one of the nine Tests (11%) this decade in which they’ve trailed on the first innings:
Only the West Indies (5%) and Bangladesh (7%)—and the minnows Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe, with 0%—have worse records.
That’s in spite of the fact that, with an average of 38.56 runs per wicket, they’ve been far and away the best fourth-innings team in the world.
In short, they leave themselves too much to do.
They’ve trailed at this point in all but three of their nine matches in 2024.
Aiden Markram averages a respectable 34.94 over the last two years, but that’s heavily skewed by a couple of big scores. His median innings is just twenty.
But when he’s set, as he seems to be here, he’s formidable:
Overall Test average: 35.53
When he faces 50+ balls: 80.04.
I take full responsibility for the fact that he’s caught behind within seconds of my relaying this information to the SABC commentators.
Bavuma has now scored 100+ runs in four of the last five Tests in which he’s batted:
200 v West Indies, Johannesburg, Mar 2023
101 v West Indies, Port of Spain, Aug 2024
4 v West Indies, Providence, Aug 2024
183 v Sri Lanka, Durban, Nov 2024
106 v Sri Lanka, this match
(He didn’t bat, due to injury, in last year’s Boxing-Day Test.)
Sri Lanka, however, has traditionally been his bogey team—the only one against which he averages less than thirty:
Average in his first six outings against Sri Lanka: 6.33
Average in his last six: 79.40
He’s now gone past sixty in five of his last six against this opponent, and his average against it has more than doubled (30.89).
Highest batting averages as captain (min. 10 innings):
Bradman: 101.5
Sangakkara: 69.6
Steve Smith: 66.6
Bavuma: 61.9
Highest averages for South African skippers (min. 7 matches):
Bavuma 61.9
Melville 57.0
Nourse 51.7
Amla 49.6
Goddard 49.6
Smith 48.3
But don’t forget that the Bavuma reign began with a pair. His average since then is 77.25!
Only twice in Stubbs’s eleven innings has he fallen to spin:
On both occasions the bowler was Taijul Islam.
That, as we’ve seen, makes his average 132.00 against slow bowling—the second-highest on record.
His average against pace, in contrast, is just 19.88.
There are two other South Africans who turned into Bradman when the bowling was slow:
Kallis: 92.40
Kirsten: 81.66
In fact, all of South Africa’s recognised batsmen in this Test have averages higher against spin than against pace:
De Zorzi: 37.25 (pace 33.11)
Markram: 44.46 (33.32)
Rickelton: 43.00 (22.12)
Stubbs: 135.00 (20.22)
Bavuma: 43.68 (35.61)
Verreynne: 49.40 (29.16)
Bedingham: 40.00 (31.70)
Theory: They play most of their matches in South Africa, where spin is apt to suffer.
This is the third 50+ partnership (out of six) between Bavuma and Stubbs. They’re averaging 81 together.
Another case of the statistician’s curse, as they’re divorced by a horrible run-out—the first South Africa has suffered in two seasons, and just the second for Stubbs in first-class cricket.
The lead is now 200. Only twice has more been chased down in Gqeberha:
270: Australia, 1996/97
212: South Africa v. New Zealand, 1953/54
Sri Lanka has done it seven times in 69 attempts.
Day 4
The seamers in this Sri Lankan squad are almost exclusively away specialists:
Vishwa has more wickets (25) in South Africa than in Sri Lanka (18).
Kumara averages 69 at home, 31 away.
Rathnayake has all ten of his Test wickets away.
Rajitha averages 47 at home, 27 away.
Only Asitha (28 at home, 25 away) seems to find home comforts comfortable, but even he prefers to be abroad.
Vishwa Fernando delivers seven wides in South Africa’s second innings. Only Kumara has done worse for Sri Lanka (10 v. Bangladesh at Pallekele, Apr 2021).
Prabath Jayasuriya’s four for 108 are his best figures outside of Sri Lanka, eclipsing the three for 85 he took in Manchester in August—the only other time he’s taken three on the road.
And now he has a five-for—only the fourth by a Sri Lankan slow bowler in South Africa, and the first at St George’s.
Of the 57 third-innings declarations South African captains have made since readmission, only one has brought defeat:
That was Sydney 2005/06, when Graeme Smith set Australia 287 in 76 overs, and Ponting’s unbeaten 143 got it done with sixteen to spare.
The median target set by South Africa to that point was 266.
The median target since is 300.
Dane Paterson vindicates me with a big hit over long on, but the proportion of his Test runs in sixes is still outrageously low (17%).
Sri Lanka needs 348 to win. Only once has South Africa failed to defend a target of this magnitude:
The Sri Lankans themselves hauled in 352 in Colombo in August 2006, on the back of an epic 123 from Jayawardene.
They won by one wicket—a margin replicated in their famous 2019 chase at Kingsmead.
Chasing 300+ to win a Test Match (all teams):
1877-1989: 7 wins
Since the 1990s: 26 wins
In 135 years of Test cricket at Gqeberha, there have been just two fourth-innings centuries:
Mark Waugh’s 116 in March 1997
Chris Rogers’s 107 in February 2014
The visitors need at least one more here, and are well equipped to provide it. Their top seven’s fourth-innings averages:
Nissanka: 168 runs @ 84.00
Dimuth Karunaratne: 1173 @ 40.44
Dinesh Chandimal: 533 @ 40.71
Angelo Mathews: 1056 @ 45.91
Kamindu Mendis: 14 @ 7.00
Dhananjaya de Silva: 383 @ 31.91
Kusal Mendis: 946 @ 52.55
In Keshav Maharaj, however, they face the all-time leading spinner at this venue. His 28 Test wickets are double second-placed Hugh Tayfield’s fourteen.
On the other hand:
His fourth-innings average v. teams other than Sri Lanka: 14.20.
His fourth-innings average v. Sri Lanka: 37.00.
Chandimal becomes just the seventh Sri Lankan to top 6,000 runs:
It’s taken him 154 innings—level with Aravinda de Silva.
Only Sangakkara (116) and Jayawardene (134) did it quicker.
And yet he’s still got only ten of his 72 runs in this Test in front of square.
During a particularly fraught spell, Mathews plays and misses at six of fifteen balls from Rabada. He’s been out five times to South Africa’s kingpin, and averages just 19.40 against him.
The fifth wicket falls on 122—still 226 runs adrift. But that, if anything, is a good omen for the visitors: On each of the four occasions they’ve chased down 300+, the fifth wicket has fallen with 150+ still needed:
387 v Zimbabwe, Colombo, 2017 (203/5)
351 v South Africa, Colombo, 2006 (201/5)
325 v Zimbabwe, Colombo, 1997/98 (110/5)
303 v South Africa, Durban, 2018/19 (137/5)
What that list also reveals is that they’ve only achieved it against the two African nations.
Karunaratne is lbw to Rabada, who has now dismissed him seven times in all formats (six in Tests, including both innings in Durban) for an average of just 20.85.
For all his success so far, Kamindu Mendis has benefited from only twice being tested in the fourth innings of a Test Match. (He collected fourteen runs on those two occasions at an average of 7.00.)
Maharaj has not gone wicketless in the final innings this decade. The last time was against this opponent, on this ground, in 2019, when he bowled only 6.4 overs for 45. It looks like they’re going after him again.
Yet another milestone to close the day: Dhananjaya de Silva moves to 4,000 Test runs. He’s the thirteenth Sri Lankan to do it.
Day 5
And so to the final act. This is already, at 2,046 balls, the longest Test Match in South Africa in five years, and exactly 500 balls longer than the average since 2019/20.
Balls per match by decade (all Test Matches):
1990s: 2,018
2000s: 1,975
2010s: 1,953
2020s: 1,791
We’re into the tail in the blink of an eye. In the blink of another we should be done:
Sri Lanka’s bottom three are old-fashioned rabbits. They have not one half-century between them in first-class, List-A or T20 cricket.
An ACS colleague observes, “That’s worse than 1999, when England made their notorious selection of ‘three number 11s’—all three had reputations as bunnies but Mullally had two FC 50s and Tufnell one (Giddins had none).”
Seven Tests into his tenure, then, Bavuma remains undefeated as South Africa’s captain. Only Warwick Armstrong (10) was lossless longer:
Armstrong (Aus): 10
Bavuma (SA): 7
Close (Eng): 7
George Mann (Eng): 7
60%+ win percentages as captain (min. 7 Tests)
Close (Eng): 85.71%
Bavuma (SA): 83.33%
Armstrong (Aus): 80.00%
Waugh (Aus): 71.93%
Shrewsbury (Eng): 71.43%
Bradman (Aus): 62.50%
Trott (Aus): 62.50%
Ponting (Aus): 62.34%
Grace (Eng): 61.54%
Rodney Ulyate serves on the ACS general committee, and as cricket statistician and scorer for the South African Broadcasting Corporation.
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