Proteas tend to play at their best when wounded

NOT all that long ago, the general consensus amongst South African cricket enthusiasts was that the second Test between the Proteas and Sri Lanka would be a formality.

It would be an extension of the massacre that would surely have occurred in Durban, and SA would have snuggled up even closer to India in the world rankings.

How wrong we all were.

Port Elizabeth is no formality. There was no massacre at Kingsmead, and the rankings are the last thing on SA minds right now.

A lot can happen in a week of sport. And a lot more can change within the framework of a Test match. Sri Lanka did the unthinkable and, with that, have changed the landscape and thinking of a few people.

Heck, of a lot of people.

They have, once more, confirmed themselves to be notoriously dark horses, perfectly capable of disrupting the natural order of things.

The Proteas have heeded the warning now, and they will treat the coast of Port Elizabeth as Sri Lanka might have defended the Fort at Galle.

They will not give up their post easily, especially as a failure to win this second and final Test will seal their fate as the first SA team to lose a bilateral Test series to sub-continent opposition.

It is the worst kind of history to be part of, even more so after the chapter that was writ by Kusal Perera’s brazen blade in Durban.

SA detest losing matches on home soil, more so the five-day variety. To lose two on the trot would be unpalatable, with a run of significant proportions building.

They have traversed an almighty Indian challenge, bullied Australia from a staircase into the unflinching light, and then outlasted Pakistan.

To fall at this hurdle would be hard for them to take.

Conditions will undoubtedly have a say, but SA are high on motivation.

This matters, and it matters more than anything else on their radar.

If there were cobwebs last week, there is no such thing now. The intensity has been ramped up, and the mood is much like the last time they came to Nelson Mandela Bay 1-0 down in a series. On that occasion, they were brutal on Australia, serving an acerbic slice of immediate retribution.

The plan will to do precisely that to Sri Lanka, and restore parity upon a passage of play that they would happily replay.

The team has to be reconfigured, but the compass is now planted sincerely upon the Sri Lankans.

SA are hurting, and they tend to play at their best when wounded.

Sri Lanka will be waiting. Play at St George’s Park starts at 10am today.