RSA vs SL Team Previews

South Africa

Scoring plenty of runs in the domestic circuit has finally rewarded Aiden Markram with yet another opportunity to portray his skills at the international level as he marks his return to South Africa's squad for the last two games of the series. Alongside him, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy too, have received a call back to the squad and all of those three are expected to feature in the playing eleven. Having said that, it would be interesting to see the batting order which Faf du Plessis employs considering three contenders for two opening positions with Quinton de Kock, Aiden Markram, and Hashim Amla all expected to play.

While Quinton de Kock has been in stupendous form this season and scored a massive century in the last match, it was refreshing to see David Miller and Andile Phehlukwayo get some runs towards the back-end of the South African innings.

The presence of JP Duminy imparts additional balance to the South African side as he not only is well and truly capable with the bat but can also contribute with invaluable 5-6 overs with the ball and add variety to the bowling attack.

With series already won, getting as much as match time for Anrich Nortje, Aiden Markram, JP Duminy, and Hashim Amla will be Proteas' one of the major purpose in the upcoming two games. Dale Steyn hasn't featured yet in the tournament and as confirmed by Dale Steyn, he is likely to feature in one of the remaining two games.

All in all, with bowling doing well and batting scoring plenty of runs albeit, on the back of only a couple of performances, South Africa will be pretty happy with the proceedings in the series thus far. Despite the expected changes to the playing eleven, we do not think South Africa will lose much firepower. The likes of Duminy and Markram are tried and tested campaigners and are coming with the weight of runs behind and if anything they'll only add to South Africa's strength.

Sri Lanka

Of all the three ODIs played thus far, Sri Lanka displayed their worst effort in the field in the recently concluded third ODI of the series. Fielding first on a terrific surface to bat on, their bowlers lacked penetration and failed miserably to stall the flow of runs towards the back-end of the innings.

Chasing a tall total which wasn't going to be easy to start with was only made difficult by the approach of Sri Lankan batsmen. The Islanders lost Niroshan Dickwella and Fernando early in the innings and rain took the match further away from them. When the match resumed, Sri Lanka needed to score at a scoring rate close to fifteen in just eight overs which was next to impossible, more so for their current batting lineup.

Kusal Perera has been the stand-out batsman not just for them, but also in the series and his absence is sure to leave a huge void in their already under-performing batting order. Their batting order is full of youngsters, many of whom are playing for the first time on South African soil.

After a brilliant performance in the longest format of the game, a lot was expected from the Islanders in the shorter version of the game, probably too much. They've failed to even come close to the levels set up the South Africans let alone beat them, in the first three matches of the series. With Kusal Perera set to miss the last two matches, the are certainly underpowered in the batting department. Having said that, they still aren't short on talent and are well and truly capable of causing an upset - just like they did in the white-ball cricket.