“We are very emotional over the defeat”: Asalanka

 Charith Asalanka at the post-match media conference

• Experience again carries India over the line

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

For a young side like Sri Lanka, losing a contest against India after being so close to winning it at one stage, was hard to stomach, to say the least.

Sri Lanka’s top scorer in the match Charith Asalanka who made his maiden ODI fifty (65) reflected the mood in the dressing room after they had lost the second ODI at the R Premadasa Stadium by three wickets.

“We are very emotional over this defeat; the players and coaches are all emotional. As a young unit we were looking forward to the win but unfortunately, we couldn’t,” said a dejected Asalanka at the virtual post-match press conference. 

“Everybody contributed and tried hard to achieve the win but unfortunately we couldn’t, despite taking the match to the final over. We are unhappy, hoping to turn it around in the final match.”

Chasing a target of 276, Sri Lanka had India on the ropes requiring 67 off 60 balls with only three tail-end wickets to capture to wrap up the contest. However, the inexperience of juggling the bowlers properly by a captain who was leading his country for the first time in an ODI series, and the mistakes in the field came to the fore as the Lankans were found wanting. To their dismay, the game was simply snatched from their clutches by India’s eighth wicket pair who showed no signs of nerves, but simply and assuredly got the required runs to seal a confidence-boosting win that gave them a winning 2-0 lead in the series with one game to play. It was Sri Lanka’s ninth loss in 10 completed matches for the calendar year and saw them sinking further away from gaining automatic qualification for the 2023 World Cup.

Once again, India showed Sri Lanka that having an experienced cricketer in the middle during pressure-situations pays off. In the first ODI it was the Captain Shikhar Dhawan (the most capped ODI player in the team with 143 appearances) who helped guide India to a win, and on Tuesday it was the vice-captain and the second most experienced player in the side Bhuvneshwar Kumar (119 ODI caps) who helped his less illustrious partner Deepak Chahar (5 ODIs) to fashion out an unlikely win, figuring in an unbroken stand of 84. Chahar, guided by Kumar’s calming influence, scored a match winning 69*, which was his highest score made at any level of cricket.

This is not the first time that Kumar has proved a stumbling block to Sri Lanka’s chances of winning. In 2017 at the Pallekele Stadium, Kumar’s 53* helped his captain M.S. Dhoni (45*) to put on an unbroken century partnership for the eighth wicket to see India recover from a losing position at 131/7 to go and win by seven wickets, reaching the revised target of 231.    

“There were a few mistakes done on the field; when numbers 8 and 9 are batting, as a bowling unit we should learn how to get them out. What we talked about in the 40th over was to push the game deep. We wanted to increase their required rate, but they were successful because they didn’t lose any wickets,” said Asalanka.

“They had a plan to play Wanindu out defensively and get runs off the other bowlers and it worked. If they had tried to get runs off Wanindu then perhaps they would have lost. Credit should be given to the two lower order batsmen who batted really well. Our bowlers could have bowled better and if they had offered a little more support to Wanindu by taking a wicket or two it would have been a different story. They have to talk and figure out how to get a wicket in that situation,” he said.

Although Hasaranga bowled exceptionally well (3/37 off 10 overs), his spin partner Lakshan Sandakan bowled extremely poorly and leaked runs from the other end, going for a princely figure of 71 runs off his 10 overs.

When questioned as to why Sandakan was persisted with when he was being expensive, Asalanka said that it was the decision of the captain and added that Sandakan was picked as a specialist bowler and he had to bowl his quota of overs.