It couldn’t be more delicious. South Africa and Sri Lanka will face each other in the de facto quarter-finals of the World Test Championship (WTC) in the next two weeks. Both believe they have built teams that could challenge for the title next June.

If that sounds obviously optimistic, think about who we’re talking about. In the last two WTC cycles, South Africa lost more than half of the series they participated in, while Sri Lanka finished in the middle and bottom half of the points table. These are teams that, particularly recently, have spent a lot of time talking about transition phases and building blocks. Now it sounds like they’re ready to leave the ground floor and possibly take the elevator to the roof if they make it to Lord’s next June.

“It’s hard to get runs anywhere in the world,” he said. “When you go to Sri Lanka, it spins. And if we go to England, things will go wrong. When we come here (to South Africa) it will be hopping. It is always hard work for the batsman. But we did it.” I have some experience, people who have played a lot of cricket here, a lot of cricket in Sri Lanka. So we are a mixed team. This is the best team after a long time and we have to make the best of it.”

South Africa has something similar, not necessarily in numbers but in the sources of its successes, which come from a wide range of players. The seven hundreds they have scored in this cycle have each come from a different batter and five of them have come from batters who have scored hundreds for the first time. For a lineup devoid of standout superstars (and one could argue has been overly reliant on Dean Elgar recently, but before that on AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla) this shows progress in both domestic depth and their ability to achieve promotion.

All of this makes the battle lines clear: this series will be decided by how Sri Lanka’s batters handle South Africa’s attack, even on surfaces that are not expected to be overly seamer-friendly. Given the way they played in England, where they won at The Oval, Sri Lanka have every reason to believe that they can challenge South Africa at two venues where they have previously enjoyed success. “We didn’t have a bad series in England but we didn’t like the results. We played good cricket and pushed the England team,” said Dhananjaya. “We will push the South African team until the end.”

And South Africa also have reason for confidence after winning their first series in the subcontinent in 10 years last month as they continue to believe in a group of players who will form the core of the Test team’s future. “There are no new faces in this series so we have definitely settled in as a team and the boys are very comfortable with each other,” Bavuma said. “It was about putting together this team of personalities, guys who can actually do something special for the team. I have the feeling that something special can emerge from this team. And I think we still have four or five games left.” Do that somehow.

Four? Absolutely, because that’s how many games South Africa and Sri Lanka still have to play in this cycle.

Five? Whoever wins at least one of the next two races can realistically dream of this finale next year.

Let the testing summer begin.

With statistical input from S Rajesh and Shiva Jayaraman