‘Sri Lanka has the capability of making it’- Sidath

Former Sri Lanka opening batsman Sidath Wettimuny who came into fame by scoring the island’s first test century at Lord’s by making an epic 191 in their maiden tour of England in 1982, and later went on to become a respected cricket administrator and a national selector thinks that the Lankan team is on the right path and are giving all the signals that they have the capability of making it to the wire.

Admitting that he was an optimist Sadath said “I think our team is moving on the right direction. Our bowlers are doing extremely well and have gelled themselves into a lethal combination. At the same time they have also moved away from the ‘Murali’ factor and have proved that we have other match winning bowlers”. He observed that the Lankan team now have the depth and have shown the rest of the world that they have the ability to bounce back at crucial points. “In our match against South Africa we did not just give it up on a platter, we fought them to the bitter end before losing that one, and in the last match against England once again we showed the same fight and proved that we could overcome such set backs. This is the hall mark of a champion combination.”

When queried about the future challenges against New Zealand and Australia who have been enjoying a flawless run in the tournament so far, the former national selector said “We should not be overly concerned about such issues. When teams are having a flawless run they may tend to relax a wee-bit, but a side’s real strength shows with their capability to come back from tight situations and displaying your true capabilities and we have done that twice over”.

When asked about the approach of the top order so far and whether opener Upul Tharanga should be replaced by Marvan Atapattu. Sidath was a bit concerned about the Lankan batting but was not overly upset over it. Explaining the situation Sidath Wettimuny said “The Lankan team has shown a calm and collective approach in this endeavour. At the top Sanath has been batting brilliantly while Upul Tharanga also has been good. Especially in the last match he had a good knock and held everything together for quite a while and scored a half century. That knock may have been slow, but it had purpose. To elaborate on it, until we had that unfortunate run out of Dilshan with ten or twelve overs to spare we had a scorecard that could have read about 260-270, which means the top order had done their bit of the job. So I do not think it is the right time to upset the applecart by bringing on changes.

‘Mahela on his part after his tentative start is batting well now. Even Kumar Sangakkara is batting well but owing to some indiscretion in his shot selection he has not been able to come up with that big one and it is only matter of time that it happens. At the same time young Chamara Silva keeps on amazing me every time that he walks on the crease. He has moved into that slot so well and his batting and running between the wickets has been very exciting... and the middle order is also firing well.”Then explaining the overall picture of the present status of the Cricket World Cup, Sidath opined “This is the World Cup and every team in this tournament has been working hard towards this plum for the last four years.

So you cannot expect everything to come dished out on a beautiful platter, there will be starts and stutters and the team who has the ability to face all these with the same grim determination is going to walk away with it all. Like I told you before I am an optimist, and I feel that Sri Lanka this time is made of all these ingredients and have the capability of making it”.