Sri Lanka eye historic maiden T20I series win over WI

Dunith Wellalage enjoys a light moment with team mates at practice in Dambulla

The West Indies team at practice in preparation for today’s crucial match

• Decisive third match today with series locked at one-all

Sa’adi Thawfeeq reporting from Dambulla

Sri Lanka will be eyeing a historic maiden T20I series win over the West Indies when the two sides confront each other in the third and final match at the Rangiri Dambulla International Cricket Stadium today with the series locked at one-all.

Sri Lanka’s emphatic 73-run win in the second T20I has opened up the series and set up an intense contest between bat and ball where a Poya holiday crowd is expected to fill the stadium to capacity.  

If not for the rain one wonders whether West Indies would have won the first T20I on Sunday. The rain which forced the wicket to remain under covers for longer than usual made it easier for the West Indies to chase in the powerplay. They were substantially the better team on that day, rain or not. But on Tuesday, they were simply derailed in the powerplay on a used track by the Lankan spinners who reaped a harvest sending West Indies crashing to their lowest score (89) against them.

“We played on the same wicket and it became drier and drier that would have been the case,” said Sri Lanka Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya explaining the change in condition of the wicket.

“For the first match the wicket was covered for two days, obviously there was a lot of moisture on it and there was more bounce and it seemed a little. There was no rain in the last two days and it became dry.”

“Whether we win the toss or not we have to play in these conditions. It’s the same for both teams whether you bat first or second. The more we play under these conditions our players will improve in their batting. Their shot selections will change, they will try various strokes to score runs on a spinning wicket. What I was pleased about is that despite the difficulty in scoring on this surface we kept our momentum going to get to a total of 160. The batting unit took a lot of responsibility in achieving that.”

Sri Lanka made two changes to the second T20I, one of them replacing young fast bowling all-rounder Chamindu Wickramasinghe with another young spin all-rounder Dunith Wellalage.

“Chamindu is a good young talent for Sri Lanka for the future, but to balance the team we brought in another youngster as spin all-rounder and he proved his worth,” said Jayasuriya.

On his T20I debut Wellalage produced a damaging spell with 3/9 off 4 overs that simply wrecked the West Indies batting and put them on the path to destruction.

“I am extremely happy the way he takes up the challenge, that’s what I expect from a cricketer,” said Jayasuriya about Wellalage.

“We saw his character in the ODI series against India the way he bowled. He got the opportunity here again on his debut in T20I. For him to take 3 wickets for 9 runs in 4 overs is not easy. Even if you get assistance from the wicket, you should be able to bowl in the right areas. Under pressure, he displayed his character. He is a young talent, very matured. A good all-rounder who proved his worth by his inclusion in the team.”

West Indies all-rounder Roston Chase whilst pointing out that Sri Lanka had prepared a wicket to suit spin to their advantage, admitted that they didn’t play the spinning ball well.

“You could see in the first game it was a true wicket and in this game the wicket spun a lot more. The guys were scared to bat on a good wicket after losing the first game so they made a wicket in favour of spin to suit home advantage,” said Chase. “Obviously we didn’t come out on top and we have to go back to the drawing board and think about playing the spinning ball a bit more.”

When it was pointed out that West Indies generally were weak against spin, Chase replied, “I wouldn’t say that. We are not accustomed to these types of wickets spinning like that. We are comfortable playing spin but when a wicket is spinning at that pace it’s a bit different from what we are accustomed to. We have to bring on the sweep and reverse sweep a bit more and the conventional sweep and try to bat a bit longer and later power the ball in the back end.”

Chase admittedly partly that West Indies went into the match a spinner short, and added, “They knew that we had only two spinners so they took their chances against the pace. If we had another spinner, it would have been better for us, but we can’t dwell on that after the team is selected.”

Spinners Chase and Gudakesh Motie reeled off 8 overs conceding 37 runs without a wicket and bowled 30 dot balls between them.

Going into today’s crucial third game Chase said, “We have to come and see how the pitch looks and plan accordingly. We have to go into a team meeting and come up with a plan and see what the best idea that we can come up with to counter the spinning ball.”