Having seen off a fatigued and predictable South Africa, Sri Lanka must now come up with a battle plan to counter Australia pace bowler Brett Lee in the best-of-three VB Series finals.
Coach Tom Moody admitted yesterday - after his team's 76-run win in Hobart that lifted it into the finals - Sri Lanka still continued to exhibit signs of a soft middle order under-belly.
If Lee can tear into its top order the way he did several times against South Africa, then officials in Brisbane need not get too excited about staging the "if-required" third final.
Moody last night acknowledged that, with Glenn McGrath ruled out of the finals campaign, Lee's impact loomed as the decisive difference between the teams.
"One of the keys to his bowling, one of the keys to Australia's success in this series is his ability to get early wickets," Moody said.
"If we can nullify that and put a bit of pressure back on him and get off to a solid start it's going to test the depth of the bowling attack.
"McGrath is a champion bowler and he will be missed up front because the combination of McGrath and Lee is a strong one. So it will test the depth of the squad.
"We'll go into the finals series confident.
"The confidence we gained from beating Australia in Sydney (last month) is going to put us in good stead."
That was the case in yesterday's match, when Sri Lanka laid a solid foundation but ended up with a total of 9-257, at least 20 short of what Moody had hoped.
It is the ability to score in the latter stage of the innings that worries the former Australia all rounder.
"We are not taking advantage (of the final 10 overs as we would like to), we're only scoring under six (an over) and that's an area where you would like to score seven-plus," Moody said.
"That's an area we have identified that we need to improve on."
For much of a suitably grey, bracing Hobart day it appeared both teams were doing their level best to avoid having to remain in Australia for an additional week to contest the finals.
As a biting wind that grew teeth on the choppy waters of the surrounding Derwent River swept across the verdant Bellerive outfield, a steady stream of missed catches, misfields and mishaps made the pseudo-final look more like a bloopers episode.
The most memorable act of tragi-comedy came in the 15th over of Sri Lanka's innings when Kumar Sangakkara pushed to mid-off and took off for a comfortable single.
South Africa's Justin Kemp decided to ping the ball at the stumps, and his direct hit was not only wasted, given the Sri Lanka wicketkeeper was safely in his ground, but also wasteful as the rebound saw the ball racing towards the boundary rope.
Ashwell Prince gave furious chase as the Sri Lanka batsmen scampered through for two bonus runs and, having hauled the ball back just a hair's breadth inside the rope, Prince hurled it back to his gloveman Mark Boucher over the stumps.
South Africa was almost as stunned as Sangakkara to see Sri Lanka captain Marvan Atapattu charging down the pitch in pursuit of a fourth run, and he was at least 10 metres out of his crease when Boucher gleefully removed the bails.
Sangakkara hurled his bat on to the ground as much in frustration as disappointment in his skipper's lack of awareness.
But the punchline arrived when umpire Daryl Harper consulted the video official to confirm that Prince's sliding save was legitimate, only to find he had been in contact with the rope at the same time as he held the ball and a boundary was subsequently signalled.
Not only had Sri Lanka's most productive batsmen survived, it had pocketed five runs into the bargain to set the day's tone.
South Africa's pursuit of 258 for victory showed a familiar brittleness and they were bowled out for 181.
- ANDREW RAMSEY