By Dhammika Ratnaweera
Sri Lanka T-20 team left to India to take on a three-match series which will commence on 5th January in Guwahati. Lasith Malinga, who retained the captaincy despite a poor-show in Australia said that the tour is going to be important for the new coach Mickey Arthur to blend a good team ahead of the world cup.
“We have only eight months and this period is very the preparations. We cannot make experiments now” Malinga said.
While Sri Lanka’s World T20 player Thisara Perera is still out from the squad, former skipper Angelo Mathews have been included in the and Malinga showed pleasure of his inclusion. “His presence to the team is very good at this stage. I think his experience more important. He played a lot of matches and know very well how to handle the matches. He knows how to handle the situation and finish the games and these are the important areas in T-20 format. Our young players can get more lessons from Matthews. Unfortunately, he suffered injuries and was in and out of the team. However, his experience very vital for the team and especially with his all-round abilities” praised Malinga.
Malinga also said Kusal Mendis is not going to play as an opener and he is going as middle-order batman, as he said that they will consider Dhanushka Gunathilake, Avishka Fernando and Niroshan Dickwella as openers. “There is no issue about his talent and we wanted to get confidence to him. Mendis is a very energetic player on the field and we can get maximum support from him. He is still a young player and hope he can reach to the top form once again.” wished Malinga.
“Indian side is very talented at the T-20 format. They played really well in their last West Indies tour. However, if we wanted to win the matches our bowlers have to do their part very well. My view is T-20 format normally batsman dominate the game but bowlers can change the game any time.” continued Malinga
He further said that they look forward to giving more match practice for the selected players. “We have good bowlers but most of them have less experience. Some were able to get experience playing in T-10 games and Bangladesh league matches recently. With this experience, I am sure our bowlers do their part very well after five-six months with more match practice” said Malinga.
Malinga, who said that he was unsure about how many months of cricket left in him said that Sri Lanka still can go in with a good chance of winning the T20 World Cup again. “We need match practice, we need to select four bowlers who can bowl tight and restrict the batsmen, We need to get experience and prepare well and then we would stand with a chance of winning the cup again.”
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