Sri Lanka holds edge against Maldives at SAAF 2021 tournament

By Shamseer Jaleel

Sri Lankan football outfit, led by Sujan Perera, will meet the hosts, Maldives, in their last group encounter in the SAAF 2021 Tournament at the National Stadium in the Maldives on 10 October.

Sri Lanka, after losing out to Bangladesh 1/0 and edged out by Nepal 2/3, came back to hold the higher-ranked Indian outfit nil-all in their last encounter, showing marked improvement in their last two outings.

Dillion de Silva, Kavindu Ishan, Dukson Puslas, Waseem Razik, and skipper Sujan Perera will be the main players to watch out for in the Sri Lankan camp. In fact, Puslas, who won the Man of the Match award against India, played a grand game. He was well-balanced in his attack, being fiery, while his defence was rock solid.

The Sri Lankan outfit showed marked improvement in their last two games against Nepal and India, and are expected to pull off a win here to end the tournament with some respectability, and end up in the top two in order to make it to the final.

Sri Lanka (probable team): Sujan Perera (Capt.), Harsha Fernando, Chamod Dilshan, Charitha Ratnayake, Kavindu Ishan, Dukson Puslas, Dillon de Silva, Mohamed Aakib, Chalana Chameera, Waseem Razik and Marvin Hamilton.