Murali poses the biggest threat: Prince

Ashwell Prince, South Africa's stand-in captain, has singled out Muttiah Muralitharan as the biggest threat to his team as they prepare for their two-Test series against Sri Lanka. Of his 635 Test wickets, Muralitharan has taken 82 against South Africa from 13 Tests at an average of 23.34. More than half of them (47) have been taken in Sri Lanka from seven Tests.

"The way Sri Lanka has been playing recently shows that they are in pretty good form. Their captain [Mahela Jayawardene], Kumar Sangakkara, Murali, and Sanath Jayasuriya coming back into the side make them a strong unit. But our main worry will be Murali," Prince told reporters. "These days everyone can analyse the players and we've got a lot of footage of the key players. We will be studying them before the series. We are missing some key players in our team and playing away from home makes us the underdogs in the series.

"A lot of them [critics] say that experience counts a lot but one of the guys who will be replacing one of them is Jacques Rudolph, the only batsmen to score a Test hundred the last time we toured here," Prince continued. "One of the other guys coming back is Herschelle Gibbs. Both are experienced Test players."

Despite the escalation of violence in Sri Lanka with the peace process between the government and the rebel Tamil Tigers virtually broken, Prince said that South Africa were quite happy with the security situation: "By all accounts there was someone who came out to check out on the security situation and we've been assured that everything is fine."

Mahela Jayawardene, his opposite number, felt that playing at home only heightened the expectations of his team. "With the amount of cricket that is being played today any country experiences a couple of major players who are forced to miss out because of injuries," he said. "But once you put on your jersey to play for your country it doesn't matter against whom you are playing against. We came across England in that manner. There are things that we can control and some we can't control. We just want to be focused on what we can control on the team South Africa is going to put out on July 27."

Tom Moody, Sri Lanka's coach, added that South Africa were always a tough opponent home or away. "We are determined to continue to keep our form and maintain the consistency as a team and the high standards we had in England in preparation for the matches," he said. "The pleasing thing is we have a got a nice balance in the side with a blend of youth and experience."

South Africa open their tour with a three-day warm up match against a Sri Lanka Cricket President's XI starting Saturday before going into the Test series on July 27.