It's back to the drawing board

Tillakaratne Dilshan and Kumar Sangakkara broke records and SA's hearts to clinch the one-day series with a game to spare in Kandy last night.

The home side won by eight wickets with six overs to spare, rendering irrelevant the last match of the rubber in Colombo on Wednesday.

Dilshan scored 115 not out and Sangakkara 91. They shared 184 for the second wicket - the biggest partnership by Sri Lanka against SA for any wicket in ODIs.

That helped the Lankans to reach 239/2, the highest successful runchase at Pallekele, in reply to SA's 238.

SA's total was propped up by returning prodigal sons Hashim Amla and JP Duminy.

Duminy made 97, in which he was dominant square of the wicket on both sides and through midwicket, and Amla scored 77 in his first innings of the series after recovering from a neck spasm and groin and knee injuries.

There would also have been relief in the SA camp that two senior batsmen set an example in a second-wicket stand of 101 in which the watchwords were responsibility and calm rather than dash and daring.

For their next trick, SA have to ensure more of their batsmen follow that lead. Amla and Duminy shared the sole stand higher than 50 in an innings in which the last nine wickets tumbled for 120 runs and the only other double figure scores were Faf du Plessis' 23 and Robin Peterson's 13.

Not for the first time in the sub-continent, SA came unstuck against spin. Between them, Ajantha Mendis, Rangana Herath and Dilshan took 7/129 in 29.4 overs. Mendis' haul of 4/51 is his best bowling in ODIs against SA.

The visitors asked Sri Lanka to score 39 more runs than had ever been made to win in the 11 other ODIs played at Pallekele. But in Dilshan and Sangakkara the home side had the right men for even so tall an order.

Not that SA did their chances of separating them much good. Sangakkara was three not out when Amla, in the gully, dropped a tough chance off Rory Kleinveldt.

Dilshan would have been run out for 33 had Amla's throw from mid-off got closer to wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock than deep fine leg.

Sangakkara was also 33 not out when SA inexplicably declined to review after Duminy's stone dead appeal for lbw had been turned down.

As if SA needed extra issues to think about, their bowlers took their total of wides in the four matches to 52.