Starting with their visit to Pakistan in October 2007‚ SA have played 18 Test series away or on neutral grounds — and lost only two of them. In both those series they lost the first match of the rubber‚ as they did against Sri Lanka in Galle last week. So history says SA’s record could take another dent in Colombo‚ where the second Test starts on Friday. Both times that SA have lost those rubbers‚ in India in 2015 and in England in 2017‚ conditions have been unusually dominant factors. In India the Nagpur groundsman cheated SA out of a fair shot at victory — the pitch was rated "poor" by the International Cricket Council — and the other surfaces were not much better. In England the visitors lost a battle keenly fought by both sets of batsmen struggling on pitches so difficult to come to terms with that only three centuries were scored in four matches. In Galle last week SA gave the pitch too much respect and in the process crashed to totals of 126 and 73‚ and with that defeat by 278...
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