Since South Africa’s readmission to international cricket, all England and South Africa Test Series have been very closely fought. The winner winning the series by a margin of just one test. The best of all these series was probably the one in 1999 when an competitive England team held a very strong South Africa at bay. The highlight of the series was Donald bowling at Atherton.

This series promises to be closely fought as well as the two teams are very closely matched. South Africa might just have the edge in the batting department. Smith, AB de Villiers and Kallis are much ahead of Strauss, Pietersen and Collingwood.

The first test will also be Ntini’s 100th, a remarkable achievement for a black player in South African national team!

All in all a classic series is about to begin, with the limited over series being very closely fought I am not about to place my money on either of the teams

Teams

South Africa (probable) 1 Graeme Smith (capt), 2 Ashwell Prince, 3 Hashim Amla, 4 Jacques Kallis, 5 AB de Villiers, 6 JP Duminy, 7 Mark Boucher (wk), 8 Paul Harris, 9 Morne Morkel, 10 Dale Steyn, 11 Makhaya Ntini.

England (probable) 1 Andrew Strauss (capt), 2 Alastair Cook, 3 Jonathan Trott, 4 Kevin Pietersen, 5 Paul Collingwood, 6 Ian Bell, 7 Matt Prior (wk), 8 Stuart Broad, 9 Graeme Swann, 10 James Anderson, 11 Graham Onions.

Timings

December 16-20, 2009, Start time 10.30am (0830 GMT)

Catch the action of England vs South Africa 1st Test Day 1 LIVE @ TheCricket-TV

More England vs South Africa 2009/10 Highlights

Follow us on Twitter to get all the updates – crichotline@twitter

Follow us on Twitter to get all the updates – crichotline@twitter