Two familiar foes meet in a crucial World Cup clash

• Chameera returns for Sri Lanka, Dimuth in contention

Dushmantha Chameera (right) trains with fast bowling coach Darshana Gamage

Dimuth Karunaratne in contention for the openers berth

Two foes, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan who have met each other so often over the past one year and with the knowledge of each other’s strengths and weaknesses, meet in a crucial Cricket World Cup match at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune today.

Afghanistan is no longer the easy-beats they once were but a force to be reckoned with. In this ongoing World Cup, they have made their presence felt with stunning victories over defending champions England and Pakistan. They are coming to this match against Sri Lanka on the back of beating former champions Pakistan and are keen to carry that momentum into today’s match as well.

“It will be a tough challenge for both the teams. First of all, we’ve played a lot of cricket together from the last one year and we know each other very well,” said Afghanistan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi at the pre-match media conference. 

“Leaving aside the LPL (Lanka Premier League), we played a lot of ODIs, like 9-10 matches. That’s more than enough for each and every player. So, not only the guys who played in the LPL know about Sri Lanka. Our team knows about them and their team knows about us.”

In 10 white ball contests (ODIs and T20Is) between the two teams over the past one-year, Sri Lanka has beaten Afghanistan on six occasions and lost thrice with one game ending in a no-result. However, in the lead-up to the World Cup, Afghanistan had the better of exchanges against Sri Lanka in a warm-up match winning by six wickets (DLS method) at Guwahati. 

“We will try our best to play how we finished against Pakistan. We will take that with us and we will try to play from there and start positively,” said Hashmatullah. “We practiced at night time and there was a lot of dew. The wicket is a bit skiddy so we’ll assess that and we will try to take advantage of the practice sessions that we had.”

“We are thinking about the games one by one. We have a game against Sri Lanka, so we are thinking of that now. Our aim and goal is to achieve and to go to the next round. But from now, we are not thinking of how to go to the semi-finals. Our mindset is busy for the Sri Lankan game right now. Let’s see what happens, then we will think about other games moving forward to the semi-finals. The team is doing well and we are all happy. I can say that we had a good tournament so far and looking forward to the other games. It will be the best ever tournament for us in our World Cup history.”

Assistant coach Naveed Nawaz said that Sri Lanka would opt to go with three seamers as they did against the game against England and in that aspect, Dushmantha Chameera who came into the squad as replacement for injured Lahiru Kumara would spearhead the attack along with Dilshan Madushanka and Kasun Rajitha.

Sri Lanka would also look for a change in the opening batting combination with current Test captain Dimuth Karunaratne in line to make a return to the side following the continuous failure of Kusal Perera. Perera who returned to the side after a shoulder injury has only once got into double figures in his last five innings of the ongoing World Cup – 7, 0, 78, 5 and 4. Karunaratne has yet to make an appearance in the 2023 World Cup having played only the two warm-up games.

Nawaz said that Karunaratne was in contention for a place as opener because earlier also they had used him in that position during the World Cup Qualifiers. “Kusal has not lived up to our expectations. We know what type of player Kusal is and we gave him the freedom to play the way he knows best, but unfortunately, he has not delivered. The selectors are seriously looking at Karunaratne as an opener.”  

Nawaz expects a high scoring game because the pitches at Pune are good surfaces for batting and past matches played on it have produced big totals.

On Sri Lanka’s chances of winning Nawaz said: “From the position that we are in every game is a tough one for us. We don’t take any team lightly, we are more focused on what we can do rather than thinking of the opposition. We plan to go out there and try to play a tidy game with less mistakes in the middle. That’s the way to go forward for us.”