Smith backs kings of speed against Sri Lanka

South African captain Graeme Smith said on Wednesday that Sri Lanka could be confronted with a bowler-friendly pitch when the first Test starts at SuperSport Park on Thursday.

“It looks good for fast bowlers,” admitted Tillekeratne Dilshan, his Sri Lankan counterpart.

Smith spent time studying the pitch before attending his captain’s pre-Test press conference.

“The wicket is looking pretty green,” he said. “I think the groundsman has got a small panic going on at the moment. It could be interesting, especially on day one. It looks as though it might do a bit.”

The sky was heavily overcast, with rain forecast, which Smith said could add to groundsman Hilbert Smith’s problems.

“He only started preparing it on Monday. When we saw it on Monday, with the weather that was forecast for the week, we thought he was in desperate need of some sunshine. I think he didn’t get as much sunshine as he was hoping for.

“It is what it is and we have to arrive here tomorrow morning and play well on whatever the surface is.”

If, as seems likely, the pitch favours South Africa’s fast bowlers, Smith had no words of sympathy for the tourists.

“Whenever a sub-continent team comes to South Africa it’s always the talk and when we go to the sub-continent it’s about playing spin. The reality Sri Lanka face is that our pace bowlers are in their own conditions and we want to exploit that.”

But Smith said it was important that the South Africans stuck to their disciplines.

“Control is a big word, for our bowlers not to get too emotional, to execute their plans well and to be aggressive in the right mindset.”

Nor could South Africa’s batsmen afford to take Sri Lanka’s attack lightly, despite a lack of express bowlers in the opposition line-up.

“We’ve just come off a series (against Australia) where all the bowlers we faced were over 140 kilometres an hour. It’s a different challenge with the bowlers Sri Lanka have got.

“We also know that South African conditions can turn a seamer with a limited record into a seamer with a very good record.”

Dilshan took a philosophical view of the likely conditions.

“We can’t control what the groundsman prepares. Whatever happens, we have to be prepared to play our best cricket. Tomorrow it might be less grass.”

Despite the likely seam-friendly pitch, Dilshan said both his team’s front-line spin bowlers, Ajantha Mendis and Rangana Herath, would be included in the 12 from whom the final side would be picked.

Dilshan admitted that Sri Lanka had made a “few mistakes” in a losing series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates recently.

“We discussed what went wrong. In the (drawn) last Test against Pakistan we played really well. If we can play our kind of cricket we can beat any team in any conditions,” he said.

With South Africa having failed to win their most recent four home Test series, Smith pledged that his players would give the Sri Lankans proper respect.

“It’s important to focus on playing as well as we can,” he said. “We’ve played enough cricket to know that if you don’t give things the right mental attitude and concentration you can easily slip on that banana.”