JOIN USSenior Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene on Wednesday said they have failed to click as a team in the series against India, and hoped the visitors could reverse the trend in the last two matches.
“Given the fact that it was a sudden series, it was a good opportunity to start playing competitive cricket. And at the same time, it gave us an opportunity to try a few things, a few young players and different combinations. But we are disappointed with how we played in the first three games. Even though certain departments clicked in certain matches, it hasn’t been an overall performance. Hopefully, we can get things right and play a good game of cricket tomorrow,” said Jayawardene in the pre-match press do here.
The former Lankan skipper said they needed to sit back and analyse the performance in the series so far and find a way to go forward.
“For this series, we’ve tinkered a bit with our batting line-up. We’ve played with two all-rounders at No 7 and 8. Obviously, we do lack a bit of pace because of injuries to our three main quicks. (Lahiru) Thirumanne and (Dinesh) Chandimal will be back with us as they were on duty with the ‘A’ team against the West Indies. Obviously, Sanga (Kumar Sangakkara) has gone back home to be rested. That’s why I said there is a lot of room for improvement. We can sit back and analyse where we need to be come next February for the World Cup,” he said.
Jayawardene reminded that Sri Lanka had a good time in the limited over versions over the last one year or so.
“The team which won in England, if you see there are about six-seven persons missing from that due to injuries and various other reasons. We had a fantastic year so far, and before coming here I think our winning percentage was around 80 percent. We won the Asia Cup, the World Twenty20, won in England – the only series we lost was to South Africa at home and we beat Pakistan as well. We can’t take away all that good work just because of the three games we had here. We will analyse and see what went wrong.”
Jayawardene also dismissed the notion that senior players like Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan have been struggling.
“They are struggling? I didn’t see Kumar struggling in the second game! You can’t analyse two brilliant players (Dilshan and Sanga) of that calibre, in two matches. You need to analyse their entire year and what a good year those two guys have had. Most of the success that we have is because of the contribution of those two and others. This is the build-up and yes, we will have a few hiccups, but it’s not a concern.”