The other Boxing Day Test

I’m not sure anyone outside South Africa or Sri Lanka really cares, but there is a Boxing Day Test in Durban too. It’s not exactly a mouth watering contest; Sri Lanka’s only skill recently has the ability to cling on for draws slightly more often than they collapse to massive defeats. They didn’t manage that in the first Test though and I don’t see them getting back into the series. South Africa have a very good seam attack with Dale Steyn looking as good as he ever has and Vernon Philander has had an incredible start to his Test career. Sri Lanka meanwhile rely almost entirely on their senior batsmen, particularly Kumar Sangakkara. The senior batsmen are very good on paper, but they have not been performing reliably and without any bowling of note they cannot hope to play better than they have recently. Not all contests can be exciting of course, and perhaps I’m a bit spoilt after the last few Tests, but come Christmas Day (in my time zone) I’ll be watching Australia v India.