Sri Lanka vs. South Africa: Five players to watch out for

Kumar Sangakkara raises his bat after he scored 150 runs during the first ODI at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on July 20, 2013. (Getty Images)

1. Kumar Sangakkara

The senior statesman of this Sri Lankan side played a thrilling knock in the first game of the series to hand out a lesson to the Proteas. He is one of the highest run-scorers in limited overs cricket in this calendar year and that’s all the more reason why South Africa should have a plan against him. He has every shot in the book and that makes him a very difficult player to work out.

However, he scored a large part of his runs in that dominating innings of 169 on the leg-side, which is an indication that the bowlers strayed on the pads too often and bowled too straight to him. They will have to force him to play on the off-side. Moreover, the slow nature of the wickets in Sri Lanka implies that the batsman are comfortable against bowlers who give that extra bit of pace and hence frequent use of variations and slower balls might not be a bad idea.