Sri Lanka out to bring Zimbabwe down to earth
June 1, 2010 07:38 am
The islanders will be confident they have enough experience and fire-power to
bounce back from a seven-wicket defeat against
A bright spot in that loss was the return to form of Tillakaratne Dilshan, the
captain, who made a well compiled 61 before being run out.
Dilshan blamed the loss of wickets at crucial times, including the two
run-outs, as being the main reason they were restricted to 242 and not getting
a score in excess of 280.
“To defend a score of 240-odd we had to bowl in the right areas and take
half-chances,” said Dilshan in a post-match television interview.
“It went wrong with the bat, with a couple of run-outs and some untimely wickets. Had that not happened, we could have ended up with 280 or 290, and it might have been a different game.”
The Sri Lankans are expected to field the same team, and they have batting
depth to No 7.
And their bowlers, both pace and spin, are players who have been in the squad
on a regular basis.
Dilshan and Upul Tharanga are both experienced openers in the one-day format,
and they are backed up by Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Silva, Angelo Mathews,
Chamara Kapugedera and Thissara Perera.
With Ajantha Mendis and Suraj Randiv, the two spinners, and the pacemen
Dilhara Fernando and Nuwan Kulasekera, the Sri Lankans will start as the
favourites.
But
“Our players have played more games now than some of the cricketers we come up
against, and we cannot go on blaming inexperience anymore,” Elton Chigumbura, the
“I am hoping to make a difference with my captaincy. We are capable of
winning games.”
Against
Chigumbura added: “We have four spinners who like strangling the batsmen and
two of them – Ray Price and Prosper Utseya – have no problem in operating
within powerplays.
“We will try to get you with spin, tackle it if you can. It’s going to be
interesting to see how