We are not a bad team, says Thirimanne
sharjah — After Sri Lanka suffered their 11th straight ODI defeat, middle-order batsman Lahiru Thirimanne was at a loss for words in the post-match press conference at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Friday night.
If not for Thirimanne’s patient 62 off 94 balls (4 fours), Sri Lanka’s total would have looked far more embarrassing than what they eventually managed — 173 all out in 43.4 overs — in the fourth game of the Q Mobile series against Pakistan on Friday.
The biggest reason for their failure in the ongoing series has been their batsmen’s inability to make their starts count.
“The players have talent. There is absolutely no doubt about that. We have won matches earlier and this is a good team, but unfortunately these things happen,” Thirimanne, who hit his second halfcentury of the series, said.
“We have to take responsibility as a batting unit. In all the games in this series, we have seen that our batsmen are dismissed by the 35th over. All players, including myself, need to take responsibility. Out of the six batsmen we play, four guys need to take responsibility.”
Thirimanne admitted that there were no demons in the Sharjah wicket on Friday.
“Today (Friday), the ball was coming nicely onto the bat. Unfortunately we lost wickets in the middle overs again. When you lose wickets in the middle overs, you can’t accelerate to set a big target. So that has been the main issue for us,” he said.
The 28-year-old batsman revealed the Lankan coaching staff has been working hard to fix the middle-order problem.
“We have had discussions on how to overcome this problem. We have chatted about how to rotate the strike and how to hit the boundaries. But we have been unable to execute those plans as of now. We still have one more game to play. Hopefully we can execute our plans and win that match,” he said.
Sri Lanka’s batsmen have also been unable to solve the Pakistani spin puzzle as Shadab Khan and Imad Wasim have taken crucial wickets in the middle overs.
“Throughout the series we have struggled to play the two of them,” Thirimanne admitted.
“We have discussed how to rotate the strike against them and how to hit boundaries but nothing seems to be clicking for us. As we are struggling against the two spinners, Hasan Ali comes in the middle overs and picks up wickets,” the left-handed batsman quipped.
Sri Lanka will look to avoid their second successive whitewash in a ODI series when they play their final match of the Q Mobile series against the ICC Champions Trophy winners in Sharjah on Monday.
rituraj@khaleejtimes.com