Sri Lanka will look to tie up some loose ends ahead of the World Cup quarter-finals when the former champions take on winless minnows Scotland in their last group match in Hobart on Wednesday.
The Islanders, who have won three of their five matches, will likely take third place in Pool A behind co-hosts New Zealand and Australia should they record an expected win at the Bellerive Oval.
Angelo Mathews` side return to action just three days after going down to Australia by 64 runs in Sydney on Sunday despite a heroic run chase led by remarkable veteran Kumar Sangakkara.
The 37-year-old left-hander smashed 104 to become the only batsman to score three successive centuries in a World Cup and is the leading run-scorer in this edition with 372 runs at an average of 124.
Opener Tillakaratne Dilshan, 38, is fifth in the list with 291 runs, but former skipper Mahela Jayawardene`s lean patch on either side of a match-winning century against Afghanistan will be worrying.
Jayawardene, 37, fell for zero in the tournament opener against New Zealand, did not get to bat against Bangladesh and England, before being run out for 19 against Australia.
Sri Lanka will need the three senior pros to fire if they are to repeat their 1996 triumph after losing the last two World Cup finals in 2007 and 2011.
The batsmen have so far made up for a wayward bowling attack which has leaked runs in the final overs to allow rivals to plunder big totals.
Sri Lanka have played the non-Test side just once in a one-day international, winning easily by 183 runs in Edinburgh in July 2011, and another one-sided game appears likely.
Statistics reveal the wide gulf between the two sides.
The combined ODI appearance total of the entire Scotland squad is 332 — 114 fewer matches than Jayawardene`s 446 ODIS, 70 below Sangakkara`s 402 and just 20 more than Dilshan`s 312.
Scotland have yet to win a match in three World Cups, and with the International Cricket Council planning to reduce the number of teams involved from 14 to 10 in 2019, Wednesday`s fixture could be their last in the showpiece event.
