SENIORS GET MATHEWS OUT OF JAIL
The magnificent victory over England in the Group A match of the Champions Trophy at the Oval was essential for Sri Lanka to stay alive in the competition having lost their tournament opener against New Zealand in Cardiff by a hair’s breadth on Sunday.
The win must have also given some relief to skipper Angelo Mathews who had his hands full in defending the misfiring seniors that finally came into the party on Thursday to show that they are still capable of matching the best at world stage.
Even in our headline for the match preview on the day of the match, we highlighted Mathews’s faith on the seniors – three former Sri Lanka captains and no lesser.Kumar Sangakkara had anyway come out of the hole in the first match, making Sri Lanka’s highest score in a lone battle against the New Zealanders but it was Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan who were under the scanner and were in the danger of catching a flight back home from London after the Champions Trophy while the rest of the team fly to the West Indies for the triangular ODI tournament also involving India.
Chief national selector Sanath Jayasuriya who is here to monitor his protégés was a relieved man after seeing Jayawardene and Dilshan batting responsibly.
“It is a great relief to see Mahela and Dilshan put their head down and bat with responsibility. If they come into the best form, there is no stopping this side from winning this trophy. It will also do a world of good for their future too,” said Jayasuriya.
Jayawardene and Dilshan both scored 40s while bowler turned batsman Nuwan Kulasekara, promoted up the order as a pinch hitter played a blinding cameo with a 30-ball unbeaten half century to assure the convincing Sri Lankan victory, but it was undoubtedly the fantastic century from Kumar Sangakkara, his 15th of the career that sealed England’s fate.
“I think the difference was an outstanding hundred from an outstanding cricketer, that was the difference. Sometimes you can come up short against a guy who plays as well as that, and you don't feel quite so bad. We tried a few different things, and the 120, 130, whatever he got bowled out, we didn't get a chance, so nothing we can sit here and say we had our opportunity. That was a very fine hundred,” was how England skipper Alistair Cook analysed the result after the match.
England scored only 38 runs in the first ten power-play overs and the main reasons for it was the painstaking effort of Cook who consumed 85 balls to score 59. But Cook felt that the reason for the loss was Sangakkara’s superb knock rather than their fault.
“Actually the one guy that struggled with timing today was me, really. If you add another 20 runs on the board, it might have been a different story. Yeah, I struggled a little bit with timing, but 300 wins you a lot of games of cricket. It didn't today because that was a very fine hundred from Sangakkara,” said Cook.
But on the opposite side of Cook, Sangakkara was pretty pleased with his effort and the way he turned around his fortunes from being a bench-warmer in the IPL tournament into a world class performer within two weeks.
“It's a case of you go in and out of form at certain times, but 50-over cricket, and when you come in and prepare really hard and well leading up to a series, it does pay off. I worked pretty hard in the first two weeks that we were here in the practice games as well as in practice, and I'm pretty happy that it worked for me,” said the champion batsman who has interestingly scored 13 out of his 15 ODI hundreds away from home.
Sangakkara confirmed that Sri Lankans who were aware of the fact that they would be knocked out of the tournament if they lost had decided to fight back like cornered tigers as they had no other way out after England clocked up a massive 293.
“I thought England was looking really strong at one point, probably heading to the 300 mark. I think Bopara really managed to put some extra pressure on us by scoring 28 off the last over. What would have been 270 suddenly became 293, and that's a big margin. But it's a do-or-die situation, so everyone was probably pretty pumped up to try and go and win the game. Angie brought us together just before we walked off the field and said, you know, just -- it's do or die, someone step up or everyone step up and try and win the game. I think whether luck or ability, whatever, we managed to get through,” revealed Sangakkara.
Sangakkara admitted that the Sri Lankan fielding was pretty average and stressed the need to improve on it against Australia, if they were to go ahead in the tournament.
“Quite a contrasting fielding performance from Cardiff to here. Car- diff we were outstanding. I think we out-fielded New Zealand, which is pretty tough to do, and here we were pretty poor, so we know we need to lift every department of our game, so hopefully we can do that, but whatever happens on the field, the key is to try and win and win at the end of the day, so that's what we'll be trying to do,” said Sangakkara.
Sangakkara was pleased with the way how their unexpected ploy to send Nuwan Kulasekara up the order but pointed out that a gamble like that could have gone either way. He commended the skipper Mathews for making the bold call despite being aware of the peril a failure could have invited.
“Well, it's strange, isn't it? If that didn't work, I think the team would have been torn to shreds, Angelo would have taken a lot of stick and criticism saying what was he doing and what were the coaches thinking. But when it does work it's fantastic,” said Sangakkara.
“Decisions like that can go both ways. I thought it was really strong of Angelo and the coaching staff to have taken that position, and everyone in our dressing room backs the decisions that everyone takes, really supports each other, and it's great to see that it worked. Kulasekara batted very intelligently, and then that was the difference in that situation because it was easy for him to come and try and hit every ball, but he batted sensibly through power play and then accelerated right after,” he added.
Sangakkara also felt that England’s displeasure at umpires changing the ball midway into the Sri Lanka innings had no meaning as the conditions anyway did not offer much support for reverse swing.
“I think it was just the ball being damaged. But there was not much reverse out there. I thought Jimmy tried to get it to reverse at the end and he bowled really well, but the wicket was pretty flat, and I don't think the wicket was abrasive enough to create that much reverse swing for England,” said Sangakkara.
Cook also agreed that the wicket was excellent for batting.
“It's a different wicket. It got better and better as the lights came onto it. I think we knew that was going to happen with the amount of kind of drizzle the last couple of days and this morning. But you know, I'm not too disappointed. Clearly we had an opportunity to get up, to get into the semi-finals today, and we didn't take it,” he said.
Cook also admitted that he was miffed with the umpires’ decision to change the ball.
“The ball was changed because it was out of shape. That was the umpire's reasoning. Yeah, the umpires make those decisions, so yeah, you have to, you have to accept them. Sometimes you don't think they're the right decisions, but there's not much you can do about it,” said Cook.