A confidant and a winning mood Sri Lanka cricket team will now take on the visiting Caribbeans under the captaincy of Lasith Malinga for a T20 cricket series which will start on Wednesday at Pallekele International cricket stadium.
Speaking ahead of the big series, skipper Lasith Malinga said that it would be a real challenge for both teams to win the tournament and he would not want to underestimate the power of West Indies cricketers in the shortest format of the game.
The Caribbeans will make changes to their ODI team with more specialists coming into the shorter version. “They are a strong team with a lot of experiences playing more franchise tournaments, which is an extra benefit to them, but our team is confident of continuing our winning mood,” said Malinga elaborating that the team is brimming with confidence after routing the visitors 3-nil in the ODI series.
Two players Nuwan Pradeep the paceman and all-rounder Dhananjaya de Silva out from this series due to injuries.
“Most of the players are in top form after the one-day series. We saw our team played three matches without any changes and that is very good to make a good team to focus T-20 world cup” said Malinga.
“We saw Matthews bowled his ten overs spell after few years and Thisara Perera and Wanidu Hasaranga really performed well with good all-round capabilities. Avishka Fernando and Kusal Mendis also among the runs at the top order and these are an extra benefit for this series but my view is more than seven players have to come their best during the match to gain victory,” added Malinga.
Meanwhile, the West Indies, current T-20 champions are expected to win the series with their new look T-20 team. The coach Phil Simmons said that this was going to be 500 T-20 games for skipper Kieron Pollard. “Playing 500 matches is not an easy task especially Pollard faced two knee surgeries and with the injuries, his dedication for this game is very special. We are T-20 world champions but consider present ranking we can’t get the extra benefit” added Simmons the former Carribian player.
Lendle Simmons, Shimran Hetmayar, Dwayne Bravo, Andree Russell, Oshane Thomas the T-20 specialists will join the West Indies side while Sri Lankan side Niroshan Dikwella, Dasun Shanaka, Shehan Jayasuriya fight to ensure the place. Most probably Dikwella and Avishka Fernando will open the innings while Shanaka and Jayasuriya will fight for the number six place. Kusal Janith Perera who was back to Colombo for his wedding yesterday will join the team on Wednesday.
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