Sri Lanka are happy not to be among the favourites to win the Champions Trophy, Reuters quoted captain Kumar Sangakkara as saying on Thursday.

Sri Lanka face South Africa, New Zealand and England in Group B, with only the hosts ranked above them in the International Cricket Council (ICC) standings.

South Africa, India and Australia have been tagged as favourites to win the second most important 50-over tournament on the cricket calendar.

"It works in our favour not to be mentioned as favourites because we will be able to operate under the radar and there will not be too much attention given to us," Sangakkara told a news conference.

"Playing on such a great stage will automatically mean teams will be out to show what they can do, and it will be all about the handling of pressure."

Sri Lanka will play the tournament’s curtain-raiser at the Centurion on Tuesday taking on the hosts. While the Sri Lankans have been busy playing all forms of international cricket in the past two months, the South Africans have not played any form on international cricket since the T-20 World Cup in England, where they were beaten in the semi-finals by the eventual champions, Pakistan.

However, Sangakkara felt that form won’t be an issue when teams meet under lights on September 22. "Everyone in our team is confident, but our recent wins are not going to count for anything," he said.

"One thing that we wanted to brush up is our fielding. Our fielding was disappointing during the Compaq Cup final. This is a side that has taken great pride in their fielding and if we can raise our fielding standards by 20 to 25 percent, we can ease the burden on our bowlers," Sangakkara added.

Although the conditions in South Africa are generally not similar to those in Sri Lanka, Sangakkara said he had confidence in his squad.