Spinners will play a big role in today’s Super Six game against West Indies

 Sri Lanka holds a 10-8 win advantage in Under-19 matches against West Indies

• Batting is letting us down at the top – Mubarak

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq 

Sri Lanka Under-19 Coach Jehan Mubarak believes that spinners will play a big role in today’s Under-19 World Cup Super Six match between Sri Lanka and West Indies at Kimberley.

“Against the West Indies at Kimberley, our spin will have an advantage. Australia were very comfortable against our fast bowlers. West Indies may be comfortable against our pace, so spin will play a big role. Whether we need to bring in another spinner depends on the pitch. We are playing on the same wicket that we played in the Namibia game and that had a lot of variable bounce,” said Mubarak.

In that match Sri Lanka made 133 and dismissed Namibia for 56.

“It’s difficult to know what is a good score on these wickets, once you have got into 20 overs only you realise what score you want to end up with. Which is why the start is really important. We lose 2-3 wickets in the first power play, so regardless of the wicket we have to consolidate.”

Sri Lanka’s second Super Six match is against host country South Africa at Potchefstroom on 2 February where the surface is going to be flat.

“Ideally, we need to win both matches. If we win only one, four points won’t be enough because the teams in the other group all of them are likely to beat Zimbabwe, so they will definitely have four and the chances of them winning two matches is higher. Then the game against South Africa will effectively become a quarter-final, if we win against the West Indies,” said Mubarak.

“We are taking it game by game. West Indies is a team we have done well against. Had a decent game against Australia. Batting is the issue but with our bowling we are confident against the West Indies. With the type of wickets you can’t think too far ahead. In the Namibia and Zimbabwe games the wickets played a huge role.”

Sri Lanka’s major problem in the ongoing Under-19 World Cup has been their top order batting which has continued to fail. It was their failure that stopped Sri Lanka from getting a par score of 230 plus in their final Group C game against Australia. They managed just 208 and Australia reached the total with seven balls to spare.

“The batting was better than what we have done so far but we were under par in that Australian game. If we had another 20 runs on the board there is support for the bowlers on the wicket, 230 is about the par score,” said Mubarak. “It was the best wicket that we played on so far, the bounce was consistent and there was also a turn. We lost because we were about 20 runs short. The boys are disappointed because it was a good opportunity for them. If we had beaten Australia we could have carried those points and there was a semi-final opportunity. It was close, it is the batting that is letting us down at the top. The batters are a bit disappointed but the mood is that we have the bowling to defend. The confidence is there within the team, somehow if we get 230 on the board we can defend. If we have to bowl first we have to get them out under 200. 170-180 is a chaseable total.”

“The openers, the top three, seem a bit tentative. They have to be a bit more positive and aggressive in their approach to score runs rather than look to survive. Survival mode against good bowlers on tough wickets doesn’t work. Their feet movements and hand movements, they are a bit too tentative in the first 10 overs. Better to be proactive and look to score runs because you are trying to put a bit of pressure on the bowler, rather than sitting back and trying to absorb all the pressure. The chances of you getting a good ball will always be there on these wickets.”

“In the middle overs they get stuck, the strike rotation is still not good enough. We try to keep the boundary option to maintain the scoring rate and sometimes it becomes a high risk game. We have been practicing strike rotation for some time. The gap between our school cricket and Under-19 cricket is big, like the gap between club cricket and international cricket. Using feet against the spinners is something that the batters are scared to do. (Dinura) Kalupahana is one of the few players who uses his feet to the spinners, Sineth (Jayawardena) a little against left-arm spinners and Sharujan (Shanmuganathan). Others are a bit tentative. They get set and once the spinners come in the dot balls go up and they get under 

pressure.”