By Dhammika Ratnaweera
“This is all about hard work. Credit goes to all the players of the team and the coach and the supporting staff. They all have done a wonderful job on and off the field. That’s what changed in this final one day game at the R.Premadasa International cricket stadium said Sri Lankan jubilant skipper Dinesh Chandimal. You have to believe in yourself,” said Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal who himself played a superb captains knock to build up huge 366 runs team total which was the highest against England presently the world rank number one ODI team. “The other thing is that we were mainly concerned about our fielding. As I said you can’t control your batting and bowling, but you can control your fielding. If you can control that then your batting and bowling falls into place. That’s what we did as a team added Chandimal.Sri Lanka team made new team song and sang at the dressing room after this victory
Sri Lanka had already lost with England gaining a 3-0 lead Sri Lanka bounced back in dramatic fashion to beat the no. 1 ranked side by a comprehensive margin of 219 runs under the D/L method which was the highest margin lost for England at their oneday cricket history..
Actually “This is a really happy moment, beating the no. 1 team in the world. Credit goes to all the players, firstly Dikka and Sadeera, who gave us a really good start. They are the ones who set the tone to build up the total. After that Kusal Mendis batted really well and also put up good partnership with me.. Also when it comes to bowling, Kasun Rajitha and Dushmantha Chameera who was named for this match for the first time in this series were brilliant. Overall this is a really good “We all know we are a young team. We just want to keep improving with every game. That’s what we always discuss at our team meetings. The main thing is fielding. If you can keep that energy and good attitude when you are fielding, other things will fall into place. That’s what we did as a team and it was highely successful said Chandimal..
The captain Chandimal had a word of praise for the struggling Kusal Mendis who finally came good to score a splendid fifty off 33 balls that comprised six sixes.Mendis who replaced for experienced Kusal Janith Perera was not among the runs to struggle in previous innings came back strongly with using his powerful strokes all over the grounds.
‘ Actually we trusted him. We looked at his fielding, and that was the No. 1 reason we trusted young Mendis. His attitude on the field was great. We know that when you have a player like that, he can get into form very quickly. We know how good a batsman he is and we had a lot of trust in that. He took that responsibility on and played well for the team,” said Chandimal. “It’s not just Mendis, but a lot of players experience ups and downs. And that’s not just in cricket, even in family life you have ups and downs. It can happen to anyone. Kusal is our future and everyone in the team trusts him. He has come back to form, and I’m sure he’ll take that forward.”
Now we wanted to go with this winning form to T-20 game as well as the test series . We have good confidence after this great victory . Chandimal also said that they were still in the process of looking at a few players before the World Cup next year.
“Today we gave a few new cricketers the chance to see where they are. Our big picture is the World Cup. Before we get there if we can give the youngsters in the team opportunities, that’s what we are hoping to do.” added Sri Lankan new captain.
Meanwhile England,s one-day captain Eoin Morgan who was not played the final one day game described England’s performance as “extremely poor” and hoped the experience could prove beneficial to them ahead of the World Cup. “We didn’t take our game forward today. There were areas it went backwards. Our fielding was extremely poor, our attitude was very poor and that has to be addressed. We’ll have to break down everything from yesterday’s practice. Did we do too much the day before the game? Did we overcook ourselves? We might have been a little bit fatigued. I don’t know. We will break it down and find an answer because otherwise we’re just papering over the cracks which is not what we want to do,” he said.
“For 50 overs today we were under serious pressure and we didn’t have a lot of answers. That gives us a good opportunity to go back and look at everything from preparation right down to the end result. That’s always better when you’ve been put under a lot of pressure,” said Morgan . However we wanted to get ready for the T-20 and the test series with more confidence said Morgan who was named the man of the series after having scored 195 runs in first four one day games.
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