Sri Lanka’s one-day skipper Upul Tharanga praised the batting of all-rounder Thisara Perera that enabled his team reach a total which his bowlers were able to defend successfully to win the third and final one-day international and draw the three-match series one-all against Bangladesh at the SSC on Saturday.
The highly talented Perera has had a rickety career full of ups and downs that has brought forth a whole lot of criticism about his attitude and commitment towards cricket.
But on Saturday at the SSC, with Sri Lanka heading nowhere at 203-5 at the end of the 40th over Perera launched a counter attack on the Bangladeshi bowlers that saw his team add a further 77 runs to the total in the last ten that enabled them to reach a competitive total of 280-9.
“It’s was a must win game for us. The way the guys came for this game was really good. We had a very good start and the momentum was lost after the two run outs. But I thought Thisara Perera was exceptional today. He showed lot of maturity during his knock. He took his time and finished the innings well,” said Tharanga.
“I think he understood his role. He did this throughout this series. He realized that he needed to come up with big efforts. Today we were in a tough position. He was the only recognized batter and his approach was good and he was showing lot of responsibility.”
Perera slammed a six and four fours in his 40-ball cameo innings of 52 to carry away the Man of the Match award.
“Given the way we started our innings, I felt that we were 20 runs short. After 30 overs there were two run outs that that pegged us back. 280 seemed tough at that stage. Thisara was too good today. He took his time to play himself in and then he went for his shots. 280 was a good total. But I thought we could have got to 300,” Tharanga said. Sri Lanka’s fielding which has been on the borderline also showed vast improvement so much so that Tharanga was obliged to make the comment, “The way we fielded today was really good. We were sloppy in the first game. We gave away too many runs. We wanted to win this game and everyone was chasing the ball and diving and that’s the way we should be fielding.
“Not only the first game I don’t think we fielded well in the last two series. The thing that we discussed was to not to be afraid to do mistakes. Sometimes when we field, we are bit reluctant and worried whether we will miss catches and we position ourselves too deep. If you practice those things only it works out in matches. We have to be unafraid. There were some good training sessions after the loss. We have attracted a lot of criticism that we are not good a fielding side. But we wanted to prove that wrong.”
The absence of a specialist off-spinner was another area that came in for heavy criticism after Sri Lanka lost the first ODI at Dambulla. The error was rectified more or less by default because it took an injury to wicket-keeper/batsman Niroshan Dickwella for Sri Lanka to fill his position in the squad with an off-spinner (Dilruwan Perera).
“When we received the squad, we didn’t have an off-spinner. As captain, I made a request that we needed an off-spinner. Then when Dickwella was injured we were able to call up Dilruwan,” said Tharanga. “When the initial squad was selected, I was unaware. I wasn’t part of that selection. Even during the Test series we knew that their left-handers were among the runs. Had they asked me, I would have told that we needed an off-spinner.”
‘The whole team is disappointed’ – Mortaza
Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza said that their batting and bowling in the first ten overs went wrong and that’s where they lost the plot.
“If you had asked me before the match, I’d have said I was more than happy to chase 260-270 in this sort of wicket,” said Mortaza. “They changed their game with the two fast bowlers. It was hard to come back from 11 for three but I think Shakib and Soumya had a chance after getting set. I think Shakib got tired. He was cramping. We didn’t get any partnerships after their stand broke.
“If you compare our bowling to theirs, we lost that battle. We expected them to be 50 for 1 or 40 for 2, it would have been ideal. We bowled well from 37 to 44 overs, by cutting out a lot of runs. If we could have done it from the start, we could have created the pressure. We recovered quite well at one stage, and I felt 280 was chaseable here,” he said.
“If you follow Mehedi’s batting you could see clearly that the wicket didn’t have anything. Perhaps the new balls swung from both ends but Soumya and Shakib could have dragged on their partnership a bit further and if the next two batsmen could have made a big contribution, we could have won the game. We needed 70-off off the last 36 balls, so I think if we had wickets in hand, things would have been different for us.”
The one positive Bangladesh drew from the ODI series is that they were able to retain the same eleven players for all three matches.
“In the New Zealand series we made changes in every game. Confidence of players went down, and started to feel insecure. It is a good thing that we were consistent in Sri Lanka. Everyone understood their role. I hope the team will remain on their toes in Ireland,” said Mortaza.
The Bangladesh skipper said that the entire team was disappointed they could not win the ODI series in Sri Lanka but added, “It is true that it doesn’t end here. We have a lot of cricket coming up, in Ireland and then we have the Champions Trophy.”
Add new comment