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| Sunday, 22 February 2004 |
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Lanka to fall back on established opening pair by SA'ADI THAWFEEQ reporting from Dambulla DAMBULLA, February 21 - Sri Lanka beaten by 84-runs in the first one-day international will revert back to their established Test opening pair of Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu for the second one-day international against Australia starting at the Rangiri Dambulla Stadium here tomorrow at 10 a.m. Sri Lanka have been persisting with their World Cup one-day openers Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana. But the pair made a total mess of things with their sloppy running between the wickets that resulted in both getting run out inside the first four overs. With their departure Sri Lanka lost whatever chance they had of making a match of it. Chasing 263 to win they were bundled out for 178. Kaluwitharana is expected to bat lower down the order. In an attempt to square the five-match series, the Sri Lankan selectors are also seriously thinking of strengthening the batting by including an extra batsman. If that is to happen it will come at the expense of a bowler. The batsmen they have in mind is Russel Arnold who can also bowl off-breaks. Nuwan Kulasekara, the 21-year-old fast bowler is out of the reckoning and the selectors will have to decide whether to retain Kumar Dharmasena or recall Nuwan Zoysa. The widely held view is that a second seamer will have less work to do on a pitch that is not likely to assist him. The pitch to be used for tomorrows game is the same as the one the first match was played and it is expected to take spin. Sri Lankas batsmen who are good at playing spin floundered on Friday against the left-arm wrist spin of Brad Hogg who returned career best figures of five wickets for 41 runs to take man-of-the-match award. Sri Lanka coach John Dyson made no bones about that fact when he said that there were only three bowlers who bowled left-arm wrist spin in the country. Last weekend we tried to find blokes who bowled left-arm wrist spin and we found there are only three who bowl that type on the island. When you dont bat against bowlers who bowl that sort of stuff and all of a sudden someone bowls pretty well against you on a turning wicket, it is going to be difficult said Dyson. Unfortunately we noticed the difference. Our main batsmen looked fairly comfortable against him and as we got down the order, the players that aren't the main batsmen were far less comfortable. You should be lucky to have someone who bowls left-arm wrist spin he said. Dyson said that losing two of your main batsmen in the first few overs to run outs made it incredibly difficult to recover from that point. That's why I thought Sangakkara and Jayawardene did a terrific job. You just can't throw two batsmen away to run outs. I think it showed that we were a little bit undone at the moment. We haven't played that many one-day internationals in the last six months' said Dyson. We fielded and bowled reasonably well but I think there is room for improvement on the field. To get them out for 262, I thought was a good effort on very good wicket and a fast outfield. It was disappointing in our batting that we lost two early wickets to run outs. We all know that run outs are just a huge waste of talent" he said. Dyson said that Australia played like a well oiled machine and that they are the team in form. "We performed like we played one one-day International in the last six months. This defeat was a good wake up call for us and made us realize that there are a few rough edges that need to be polished off. Tomorrow should be the chance to show that we are keen about the series" Dyson said. |
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