Sri Lanka take on defending champions India today

Sri Lanka Batting Coach Thilina Kandamby addresses yesterday’s pre-match media conference 

• We have nothing to lose says Kandamby

DUBAI: After being knocked out of the ongoing Asia Cup, Sri Lanka have only their pride to play for when they take on defending champions India in their final Super Fours match at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium today.

India have already qualified to play in Sunday’s final, and are expected to rest some of their key players for this match and give those sitting on the bench an opportunity to flex their limbs. Even if they do that, India are still formidable opponents.

The strike rates of their batters are so awesome that Sri Lankan bowlers will need to come out with something special to contain them.

Abhishek Sharma has a strike rate of 197.72, Shubman Gill 141.76, Shivam Dube 138.03, Suryakumar Yadav 165.23, Hardik Pandya 141.18, Tilak Varma 151.25, Axar Patel 138.59, and Sanju Samson 148.32.

Compare this to Sri Lanka: Pathum Nissanka 124.57, Kusal Mendis 131.53, Kusal Perera 132.81, Dasun Shanaka 123.05, Charith Asalanka 126.94, Kamindu Mendis 128.04, and Wanindu Hasaranga 130.03.

Apart from their batting, Sri Lanka will also have to contend with the Indian spinners, who have been brilliant in the middle overs.

“Our guys have been playing spinners regularly so they know how to handle spin in whatever the conditions. India have some world-class bowlers in their line-up—if our batsmen are in a good, positive mindset, they will be able to overcome them,” said Sri Lanka Batting Coach Thilina Kandamby. 

Speaking further at the pre-match media conference, Kandamby said: “We are not in a good position having lost the two Super Fours matches. The morale is low, but we need to move forward. We have discussed where we had made mistakes. We are in a nothing to lose position. India is a good side. We need to put up a good fight. If our players perform well, we are capable of beating them.”

Explaining the problems confronting Sri Lanka in their Super Fours losses to Bangladesh and Pakistan, Kandamby said: “We have a problem with our combinations—whether we should go with an extra batsman or with a bowling all-rounder. If you take any team, they have batters till no. 8 so it is not easy for us to go with 7 batsmen and 4 bowlers. There is a necessity to play an all-rounder.”

“We have won most of our matches with a 7-4 combination. In the game against Bangladesh, we scored the same number of runs as India (168), but we were unable to defend it. There was doubt after that whether we should use an all-rounder. In our previous matches, either Pathum or Kusal batted until at least till the eighth over. Unfortunately, when we played one batsman short, both of them got out inside the powerplay. That became a factor and resulted in us playing down 60 dot balls. We have decided, depending on the surface and the opponent, we will make whatever changes are necessary. Otherwise, we have no intention of making any big changes because of the current set of players; many have not played a lot of T20I matches. When we won the 1996 World Cup, we had 6-7 players who had appeared in more than 100 ODIs. So rather than get a large group of players, it is practical to keep about 17-18 players together and rotate them.”

“Like our fans, we are sad that we had to disappoint them. The players did their best to perform well, but due to small mistakes they made, the results did not come our way. We have another 4-5 months before the T20 World Cup to rectify the mistakes we’ve made. There is no point thinking of the past but we need to move forward.”