ICC Champions Trophy : Sri Lanka meets New Zealand in last league match today:

Sanga vows to bounce back

Ranjan ANANDAPPA reporting from South Africa

CRICKET: Kumar Sangakkara pledged to bounce back strongly in Sri Lanka’s final league game against New Zealand in a ‘must win’ day game to be played today (Sunday) at the Wanderers, Johannesburg.

Sri Lanka lost to England on Friday and the encounter against New Zealand too will be played on the same square. The wickets at Wanderers are expected to be another fast track.

The match is scheduled to start at 1.00 p.m Sri Lanka time. Referring to the game against England Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara said that he thought that the fight back from Kandamby, Samaraweera and Mathews was excellent and they showed a lot of character and Kulasekera and Muralitharan getting us beyond the 200 run mark.

“It seemed a good score by the time we came in but probably the way we bowled the middle overs, may have cost us a bit too much allowing England to get away. It is always tough when you are 17 for 4 as we were, but that’s the way it goes and we got to make sure that we adjust ourselves a lot quicker and play a lot better in the next game.

The Sri Lankan captain said that if there is a bit of movement that is appreciated by all teams, when the conditions are like this with cracks and so much grass which more of a first day of a Test match, then it becomes a bit hard to play proper one day cricket.

But when you see the wicket you got to do the best with what you have and we should make sure that we got to adjust ourselves a lot next time.

“When Eoin Morgan came in he was a bit lucky to get away. There were lots of edges and paddle sweeps that went over the slips, but at the end of the day he understood his job very well, and did the job required for his side and that’s what every side look forward from their batsmen and Morgan played that crucial role that saw England through,” Sangakkara said that for the crucial match against the New Zealanders there could be a few changes.

The Sri Lankans beat the Kiwis comprehensively in the ‘Compaq’ home ODI series which India became the ultimate champs. But the conditions here at Wanderers is quite different from home.

“We’ll have to sit back and think about it. There are lot of good players on the bench waiting to have a look, think about it a little more and take the decision.” Sangakkara stressed that every game is important in this tournament.

“We started off very well against South Africa, we have to brush up again here, specially with our fielding, because if we beat New Zealand we will be in the semi-finals. The key is not to bother what happens at the end of the day but really bother to get the processes right, making sure that we cover all bases in our fielding, how we carry ourselves on the field and the way we think about the game. Because at the end of the day, it just matters in what you do on that day.”

“We had the pressure on with five to six fielders in the ring covering the areas where batsmen like to hit their boundaries, but it was a case of having to pick up wickets and we didn’t pick up quickly enough and the Collingwood - Shah partnership was the first step towards England winning the game.”

“Kandamby and Mathews have been very impressive in the whole of last year, while in the ‘A’ side and against International sides they have been very good, so we have solved the middle order problem, now we got to get everyone firing at the same time,” he said.