Sangakkara was one of the few successes for the badly-beaten World XI in their three-nil one-day series loss to the Australians in Melbourne over the last week.

Australia's gloveman felt Sangakkara's innate understanding with fellow countryman and spin wizard Muttiah Muralitharan was worth his selection alone ahead of Boucher.

Muralitharan confuses batsmen and fieldsmen alike with his bewitching turn and looms as one of the world's big attacking weapons on the spin-friendly Sydney Cricket Ground pitch this week.

Sangakkara's batting record is superior to Boucher, with the Sri Lankan left-hander scoring 3,698 runs at 48.02 in 50 Tests compared to Boucher's 3007 at 30.68 in 84 matches.

Gilchrist was surprised by the world selectors for Boucher ahead of Sangakkara, who had scores of 64, 61 and 13 in his three Super Series innings last week.

"Kumar keeping so regularly and so well to Murali is probably what jumped out at me," Gilchrist told reporters Monday.

"I thought he might have been in the Test position for that reason alone because I imagine it would be so difficult to take on in a one-off scenario.

"But their selection panel had plenty of time to ponder over it and they have come up with that one and Mark Boucher is a very well-performed cricketer for South Africa as we know."