South Africa's bowling coach Charl Langeveldt and seamer Junior Dala will not travel with the team for their white-ball series against Sri Lanka after testing positive for Covid-19 a few weeks ago. Though the pair have both subsequently returned negative results, the Sri Lankan government requires anyone entering the country to have not tested positive at least 21 days prior to arrival in the country, which has ruled them out of making the trip.
Lutho Sipamla, who has played five ODIs and nine T20Is for South Africa, replaces Dala in the squad while Northerns' coach Mandla Mashimbyi will stand in for Langeveldt. Mashimbyi also travelled with the South African team to the Caribbean recently, where he replaced assistant coach Enoch Nkwe for the Test leg of the tour, after Nkwe had to attend to personal matters.
South Africa will also be travelling with a batting consultant for the first time since Jacques Kallis was part of the set-up in the 2019-20 season. Justin Sammons, who has worked as batting coach of the Lions franchise, and has also previously worked with Zimbabwe, is part of the touring party. That means batting lead Neil McKenzie, whose task is to oversee batting across both men's and women's national teams, in the high-performance structure, and at age-group levels, will not be travelling to Sri Lanka.
The squad leaves for three ODIs and three T20s, all to be played in Colombo, on Wednesday with the first ODI scheduled for next week Thursday. South Africa are without Quinton de Kock (rested), Lungi Ngidi (personal reasons) and David Miller (hamstring injury) for the ODI leg of the tour but the trio are set to return for the T20Is.
Sri Lanka announced a 10-day nationwide lockdown beginning on Friday night to contain the spread of Covid-19 after the country witnessed a surge in cases. This means South Africa will have increased protocols from the Pakistan tour earlier this year.
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo's South Africa correspondent
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