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| August 5, 2005 | Friday | Jumadi-us-Sani 28, 1426 |
No mercy, Atapattu warns rivals
COLOMBO, Aug 4: Sri Lankan captain Marvan Atapattu on Thursday warned rivals his team will not relax despite qualifying for the final of the triangular one-day cricket series. Sri Lanka made it to the final after defeating India by four wickets at Dambulla on Wednesday for their third successive victory in the tournament also featuring the West Indies.
India have one win from three matches and the West Indies none from two. The West Indies play Sri Lanka at the Premadasa stadium here on Saturday and meet India the following day in the remaining two league games before the final on Aug 9.
“I don’t think we will be complacent after qualifying for the final,” said Atapattu.
“Our efforts have not been 100 per cent in one game. We need to work on that. We have performed as individuals, but not all of them have performed in the same match.
“We hope to do that in the final.”
Atapattu was optimistic that key batsman Sanath Jayasuriya and left-arm seamer Chaminda Vaas will return for the final.
“We did not want to risk him (Jayasuriya) against India, but he is OK. Vaas is bowling off a shortened run-up and we are thinking of giving him a chance on Saturday,” the Sri Lankan captain said.
Jayasuriya is recovering from a shoulder injury sustained while fielding during the opening game of the tournament last week, while Vaas has not figured in the three matches due a hamstring strain. In contrast, India are struggling to find solutions to their batting and bowling problems in their first competition of the season.
They have not managed to put enough runs on the board, scoring 205 and 220 in two matches batting first. In bowling, they felt the absence of an effective fifth bowler. “It (fifth bowler) is an area of concern,” said Dravid, whose team had gone into every match with four specialist bowlers.
“We are not scoring enough runs, so we decided to play an extra batsman. We need batsmen to stay in the end overs. In two games against Sri Lanka, our batsmen have not batted in the last seven-eight overs and that has cost us.
“We also hope our part-timers bowl better in the remaining games. Sri Lanka’s fifth bowler did really well against us on Wednesday.” Part-time spinner Tillekeratne Dilshan was Sri Lanka’s bowling hero, grabbing a career-best 4-29 to restrict India, who were strongly placed at 117-1 before managing just 220-8 off their allotted 50 overs.
Sri Lankan batsman Mahela Jayawardene said his team had planned to score maximum runs off India’s fifth bowler.
“We knew they will bring on the fifth bowler at some stage to fill in 10 overs,” said Jayawardene, who scored an unbeaten 94 to shape his team’s remarkable victory. Needing 221 to win, Sri Lanka were wobbling at 95-6 before Jayawardene and Upul Chandana (45 not out) steered their team home with a 126-run stand for the unbroken seventh wicket.
“We made sure we got at least five runs off them (India’s part-time bowlers) in one over, but managed to get more than that,” said Jayawardene. Part-time spinner Virender Sehwag and seamer Saurav Ganguly, who were used by India in Wednesday’s game, conceded 55 runs in their nine overs.—AFP
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