De Mel attributes grassy wickets and lack of facilities for team’s lacklustre performances

By Dhammika Ratnaweera

Sri Lanka’s disastrous start to their CWC 2019 campaign was entrusted to grassy pitches,  lack of facilities and bad weather that caused two washouts, which at some point proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Sri Lankan team manager Asantha de Mel, who started his world cup campaign with an official complaint about the above situation, used the same words attribute the team’s lacklustre performance at the CWC 2019 as he said that they got very unfair wickets during the first two matches at Cardiff grounds. “It was full of grass but other teams did not get that type of wickets. We also had the same type of a wicket at the Oval grounds but when we complained about it, they cut the grass for Australia match at the last minute.” said de Mel

He said that he noticed different wicket for England and  Bangladesh match at Cardiff they got less grass wicket and both teams scored over 300 runs. As a Manager I had to complain about this situation said Cricket Chief Selector and Manager of the Sri Lanka team Asantha de Mel after return home with the team.

Commenting on the performances of the team,  De Mel said “I  could not be satisfied with our performances but at the same time, we can be that happy our players came out with better performances later part of the tournament.”

“I am very satisfied with the bowlers’ performances during the matches the only thing was when our batsmen were not among the runs to build up the innings bowlers were under pressure” He explained.

However, De Mel was of the view that Sri Lanka’s fielding display was satisfactory except for the West Indies match. He also praised the young Avishka Fernando, captained picked Dimuth Karunarathne and experienced campaigner Angelo Mathews who all came among runs and hopes to make a strong around them for the future.

De Mel in his capacity of Chairman of National Selection Committee and now the manager of the team says that most of the current team members are capable of making it until the next world cup and that everyone in and around the national cricket team should work on fitness.  He also defended the poor show by Kusal Mendis and Jeffrey Vandersay in their respective departments saying that they are two good resources for the future.

Sri Lankan captain Dimuth Karunarathne said that he is very happy and satisfied with the tournament’s performances as the team was able to finish sixth on the points table after qualifying as the 9th ranked team in the tournament. “It was unfortunate two of our matches were washed out, we won three matches and it was a matter of pulling out another match to go forward” said a happy captain.