Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday Sep 20, 2024
Friday, 11 August 2023 00:16 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
Captains of the five LPL teams at the media conference held at the R. Premadasa Stadium yesterday (from left): Niroshan Dickwella (Colombo Strikers), Thisara Perera (Jaffna Kings), Dasun Shanaka (Galle Titans), Kusal Mendis (Dambulla Aura) and Wanindu Hasaranga (B-Love Kandy)
By Sa’adi Thawfeeq
The captains of the five teams participating in the fourth edition of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) expressed their opinions on the tournament, with the player auction, the quality of pitches and their chances of qualifying for the Playoffs. The tournament reaches its final stages with the remaining league matches commencing today at the R. Premadasa Stadium with Dambulla Aura taking on Galle Titans at 7.30 p.m.
Thisara Perera, Captain of three times winner and current champions Jaffna Kings said to improve the LPL he would prefer to have an additional team making it six.
“It will be good and it will increase the competition amongst the teams. Compared to the first season this season the crowds have gotten bigger in Kandy and in Colombo.”
Sri Lanka white ball Captain and Galle Titans skipper Dasun Shanaka said: “If you take the tournament stage by stage we have developed a lot – game sense, the competition and the quality of cricket. From the first season the quality of the tournament has improved and players have matured which is one of the positives. Youngsters have got a good opportunity to play consistently. Players like Matheesha Pathirana, Maheesh Theekshana, Nuwanidu Fernando and Nuwan Thushara got the exposure and caught the eye playing in the LPL.”
Player auction
All the captains were of the view that the Player auction should be continued and it was one of the reasons for this year’s tournament to be more competitive with all five teams still in the running for a place in the Playoffs.
“It’s a good thing to have an auction because all the teams got a fair distribution of players. In the past Jaffna dominated the first three tournaments and Kandy dominated the last time. Other than those two, the other teams didn’t perform well,” said Shanaka.
“When you have an auction and pick a player he will focus a lot on his game. The players try hard and perform in the NSL to get selected to the LPL. If we continue with the players’ auction it will be good for the tournament,” said B-Love Kandy Captain Wanindu Hasaranga.
“The auction is very good because we get an opportunity to choose the players we want. We were able to get about four of the players who did well from Jaffna. How many good players you have, if the team is not balanced you cannot perform well,” said Dambulla Aura Captain Kusal Mendis.
“I don’t think we were greatly affected by some of the domestic players leaving us because we were able to replace them with some good foreign players,” said Perera. “If you take them individually they are players who have played more than 300 to 400 T20s. I don’t look at losing some of the players as a big issue. Having an auction is good, because then only we get to know the value of the player. If you go with the Player draft you don’t know his value.”
“When compared to the first three tournaments, the competition this year is strong. We have lost three matches but in the past three years we have not lost as many. It’s good to see the competition increasing. If you look at it as a country there is competition amongst the players. If one team keeps on winning all the time there is no meaning to it. This year we have a big challenge, we are prepared to face it. Chris Lynn has arrived in Sri Lanka and he will replace Towhid Hridoy (of Bangladesh). With Chris’ arrival I believe our team will be much stronger.”
Jaffna, currently placed third with six points have only two matches in hand and need to win both to be in contention within the first four to qualify for the Playoffs.
B-Love Kandy’s change of fortune and Galle Titans successive losses
Having lost the first two matches of the first leg played in Colombo, B-Love Kandy found their rhythm and won all three games played in Kandy to go to the top of the league table.
Talking the media through that massive change, Kandy skipper Hasaranga said: “We didn’t have one or two of our overseas players with us at the beginning and Dushmantha (Chameera) was also not available for both Colombo games. As captain I am happy to have won the three matches in Kandy. To lose the first two games and bounce back the way we did I am extremely happy with our performances. The presence of Chameera, Fakhar Zaman and Mohammad Haris is important to our wins.”
One of the key features of Kandy’s success was Hasaranga promoting himself in the batting order and scoring runs at a rapid pace.
“I promoted myself to number three and five because of the team’s requirements. It is a position which I have not batted but to balance the team I decided to do so. I have batted at number five in the national team but if I get an opportunity to bat at three or four I am prepared to take up that challenge.”
Galle skipper Shanaka described his team’s three consecutive losses in Kandy after a successful beginning in Colombo, to poor fielding which has left them at the bottom of the table.
“We made a lot of mistakes on the field in Kandy. We missed vital catches and we misfielded and allowed batsmen to convert singles into doubles. One thing we always talk about is that even if we don’t perform with the bat or ball we need to field well to uplift the spirit of the team. That is what we have been taught from our childhood. We have the players and if we improve our fielding we can lift our game.”
Colombo Strikers Captain Niroshan Dickwella is struggling to be fit after having five stitches inserted in the web between his thumb and forefinger.
“I still have stitches in my hand and am struggling a little bit. I have two more days because we are playing the day after (12 August). It might heal tomorrow but we will see. We are fourth in the standings but as the coach always says it is not how we start but how we end the tournament. I believe in that and the players are preparing very well. We lost a few games by close margins and we are playing good cricket. With one or two wins we will get into the qualifiers.”
For the remaining matches the teams return to the R. Premadasa Stadium which did not get a good assessment from the captains.
“From the first game we found out how difficult it was to bat on the surface. In a tournament of this nature if you have wickets like that it is difficult for us to produce good cricketers. There should be good tracks to play on. We saw the difference in Kandy when there were some high scores made. If we can have similar tracks in Colombo as well it will be good for the players as well as for the game,” said Hasaranga speaking on behalf of the captains.
