Mark Boucher

Graeme Smith and the Herschelle Gibbs opened the batting for South Africa against an extremely confident Sri Lankan bowling attack. The pair got off to a slow start, with Gibbs in particular struggling to get his feet going against the swing bowling of Chaminda Vaas.

Gibbs looked completely out of touch and eventually lost his wicket without scoring off 13 deliveries. Vaas again got one to swing back into the right-hander, trapping him lbw.

Jacques Kallis immediately gave the South African innings some momentum. The second-wicket pair brought up their fifty partnership off only 45 deliveries and went on to score 77 runs, before the visitors' skipper was clean bowled by Kaushal Lokuarachchi.

Smith was on his way back to the pavilion for 38.

Kallis was joined by Jacques Rudolph with the score on 90/2, and the pair continued to bat at a healthy run rate, considering the outfield was rather slow due to overnight rains in Colombo. Kallis was given a lifeline in the 14th over when he was dropped by Kumar Sangakkara behind the stumps, and went on to reach his half-century off 50 deliveries.

In doing so, Kallis brought up 7000 ODI runs - the first South African to reach the milestone.

Rudolph was the third wicket to fall when he charged Upul Chandana, trying to hit him back over his head. Rudolph swung and missed and Kumar Sangakkara did the rest, stumping Rudolph about a foot out of his ground. Rudolph departed for 22.

Kallis was the fourth wicket to go, after he drove the ball hard back at Chandana with his score on 74. Only Chandana appealed for the catch, and the umpires were forced to refer to the third umpire. After viewing television replays it was clear that Chandana took a fair catch, with the ball coming straight off the bat into the hands of bowler.

Mark Boucher and Shaun Pollock set about building the visitors' score in the middle overs. The former was particularly inventive with his strokes through the leg side and together they kept the run rate around five per over.

South Africa reached their 200 in the 41st over of the innings. When Pollock was bowled on 30, looking for a boundary, it brought to an end a 52-run partnership.

Boucher continued to score at more than a run a ball and reached his fifty off 41 deliveries, his 15th ODI fifty. The South African wicketkeeper was eventually caught on the long-on boundary by Gunawardene, off the ever-wily Vaas. He scored 58 off only 47 deliveries.

After Vaas did well to close out the visitors in the penultimate over of the match, Tillakaratne Dilshan could not prevent a few scrambled singles and one swing over cow corner. In the final mad dash, South Africa posted an imposing 263 for the loss of nine wickets.