Confident Sri Lanka take on India today

 Sri Lanka Assistant Coach Naveed Nawaz (left) and team player Dushan Hemantha watch Dhananjaya de Silva bowling during practice

• Asia Cup Super4 fixture at R. Premadasa Stadium

With so much hype surrounding the matches between India and Pakistan in the ongoing Asia Cup, the focus has moved away from six-time champions Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, the other two teams in the Super4, which in a way is good. It has allowed defending champions Sri Lanka to work themselves gradually towards reaching yet another final.

They won their first Super4 game against Bangladesh and will take on India at the R. Premadasa Stadium today. A win here would assure them a place in the final ahead of their final Super4 match against Pakistan.

“We are very pretty confident of doing well. It is not based on the outcome,” said Sri Lanka’s Assistant Coach Naveed Nawaz at the pre-match press conference yesterday. “We are trusting in getting the players to get involved more and get committed to the processes rather than looking at the outcome, whether we win or lose. If we plan to play good cricket and execute our plans and do the best version of ourselves in the middle against India, obviously the result will be favourable for us.”

“Our boys are very resilient when it comes to handling pressure, even in this tournament and in the last Asia Cup, we played with a lot of absence from our front line players especially from our bowling attack. The players who played in the tournament came back strongly as regulars. It shows that our boys are really good and they handle pressure well when it comes to big tournaments and pressure situations.”

Nawaz also talked about the bench strength of the Sri Lanka team which has made it more competitive for places in the eleven.

“We can see that our bench strength is strong because a player like Kusal Perera cannot get into the 11. It’s pressure for those playing in the team that if they don’t perform there are players waiting outside to take their place. It’s a big advantage to have competition like that for the team. If we have that kind of situation only the players improve as well as the team.”

Having won a record 13 ODIs in a row for an Asian nation, Nawaz said the vibes inside the team were positive.

“We changed combinations during the World Cup qualifiers and we are getting the desired results gradually from it. There are a few areas which the players are working out. We have a World Cup ahead of us and the Asia Cup we have a couple of important games. Winning them is good for our mental makeup. It is important for our players to perform whatever roles that have been dedicated to them. The experience they gain from it is important.”

Nawaz admitted that the team had a problem with batting numbers 6 and 7 but explained: “Only recently we brought Dhananjaya (de Silva) to number six and pushed Dasun (Shanaka) to seven. We still haven’t received a good performance from them in that position. Dhananjaya played well in the World Cup qualifiers. He won quite a few matches for us. In the last few games, he has not performed but we have faith in Dhananjaya and Dasun that they will get back into form with the World Cup round the corner.”

For Sri Lanka, the batting of Sadeera Samarawickrama has been a big plus point.

Sadeera is a player who has a strike rate of 92 in ODI cricket. We don’t have many cricketers in Sri Lanka with that kind of strike rate batting in the top order,” said Nawaz. “Sadeera is a batsman who is always on the lookout for runs, so he is giving the bowlers also a chance of getting him out. We must have a lot of patience with a player like Sadeera. He has shown in the past few games what he is capable of. He has shown what he can give to the team, what role he can play and what sort of impact he can make.”

In the two matches against Bangladesh (Group and Super4) which Sri Lanka won, Samarawickrama struck half-centuries (54 and 93) batting at number four.   . – (ST)