Upul Tharanga. AP/PTI file photo.
Sri Lanka skipper Upul Tharanga’s first series as a full-time limited-overs captain couldn’t have got any worse. He received a two-match suspension for slow over-rate, endured a poor run with the bat and couldn’t stop his team from crashing to 0-5 loss. The left-hander rued batting failures, things to learn from Virat Kohli among other things. Excerpts.
Where is the team going wrong?
We committed too many mistakes. As a batting unit we failed to post decent totals. In five games we failed to post 250 runs even once. I am very disappointed with that. These batting displays are worrying. Even today we could have made about 270 or 275. We were well placed, but like in the last few games we collapsed. We lost some seven wickets for 53 runs. That has been something that is happening frequently now. We commit too many mistakes and we need to rectify them soon.
What can you learn from Virat Kohli?
The whole series and prior to that we have spoken about it. Virat is an experienced player and we can learn from him a lot. In ODIs, one of the top four batters need to make a century then only we can go on to get something like 280 or 300. Kohli’s batting was a good example for us. We need someone who is set to get a big one. But we failed to achieve that.
Your openers failed repeatedly…
(Niroshan) Dickwella and Danushka (Gunathilaka) are attacking batsmen. We have given them the freedom to use the Power Play. But we have told them that if you get a start, you need to go on. When you are batting in the Power Play you score about 30 or 40 runs and you should go on. We failed to achieve that even after five games. Not a single century in the whole series and that has been a letdown for us.
What do you make of the Indian attack?
Throughout the series, our batsmen failed after getting starts. In batting, we have to be concentrating more on making big ones. Bhuneshwar Kumar and Jaspreet Bumrah bowled really well. They are very good white-ball bowlers. They have played a lot of IPL matches. They are playing with the world’s best players. They have improved because of that. Slow balls and yorkers, their bowlers were very crafty.
DH News Service