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| September 2, 2005 | Friday | Rajab 27, 1426 |
No respite for BD as Moody rules out changes
COLOMBO, Sept 1: Sri Lanka’s coach Tom Moody ruled out resting his key players for Friday’s second one-dayer against Bangladesh, saying he wanted to complete a clean sweep.
Sri Lanka lead the three-match series 1-0 following their emphatic 88-run victory over the tourists in the opening game on Wednesday.
“We certainly do not want to go lightly,” Moody said on Thursday ahead of the second game at the Premadasa stadium.
“We have got faith in all the guys in the squad, but our aim is to win all three matches and, with that in mind, we do not want to weaken the side (by making any experiments).”
Moody said there was still room for improvement despite winning the first match comfortably.
“There are few areas we would like to improve on and we hope to work on them during the next two matches,” he said.
“One of the areas where we want to do well is to make sure we score maximum runs during power plays. We did not score as many as we would have liked in the first game, but we are still learning like any other team.
“We would also like to be consistent with the ball and then we have observed that our top-order batsmen got starts, but did not go on to make big scores.”
Moody said his team could not afford to take Bangladesh lightly, especially after the minnows’ shock win over world champions Australia in England in June.
“The game at Cardiff highlighted that anyone can win. You should prepare well and if you don’t you are going to come out second-best,” he said.
Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar said he was looking forward to an improved all-round performance from his team.
“We certainly can field much better than what we did in the first match,” said Bashar, whose side missed four catches and a stumping.
“That is a definite area where we need to improve along with our top-order batting. We lost too many wickets in the first 15 overs. Instead of batting longer, we played too many shots too early.”—AFP
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