Sri Lanka take on Nepal tomorrow

The Sri Lanka Under 19 cricket team which arrived in Malaysia on February for the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup were hard at practice at University Sains ground in Penang Malaysia which is popularly known as USM in preparation for their first major encounter against Nepal to be played tomorrow at the Penang Sports Club ground under the guidance of coach Roger Wijesuriya and former Sri Lankan batting star Aravinda de Silva.

The tournament participated by 16 teams saw most of the teams playing two warm up games which enabled them to see the strength of their opponents and also to know where they stand. The Lankans could be satisfied with the performances of their warm up matches. They lost the first game to West Indies but bounced back to defeat the strong South African counterparts in their next outing.

Sri Lankan coach Roger Wijesuriya speaking to The Sunday Times stated “we were unable to play two of our main players against West Indies as Dinesh Chandimal was not well and we wanted to give him a rest. This was a game we should have won it was just that our boys were unable to keep up the pressure in the latter stages. But there was immense improvement in the second game against South Africa. We brought in Chandimal and also brought in Denuwan Fernando and Ishara Jayaratne. More or less we were thinking of giving all the players an opportunity of playing in the conditions over here.

“Another reason is who knows there maybe injuries later on so better we have everyone prepared if anything of that sort happens. The pitch was good what we saw was is that it is similar to Sri Lankan playing conditions. It helps the spinners and that would be an advantage to us. The pitch was very good for us in Kuala Lumpur but now we have come to Penang and it looks it’s the same condition. But we will have to be prepared to play in any condition. The warm up matches were also a good preparation for the boys and we cannot judge a team from the outcome of warm up games. Sometimes we must try not to get carried away with these wins but when we go into the tournament proper we have to go all out and take the games one by one. We have all the confidence that we could lead the table and advance to the semi finals”.

Roger stated the final 12 players will be selected only after today's practice session and at the moment Dilshan Munaweera is having a finger injury and that too will have to be looked into to decide the final team.

Sri Lanka led by Ashan Priyanjan are in Group 'C' along with Nepal, Namibia and Australia. After their opening game against Nepal they confront Namibia on February 20 at the USM and then play their last league encounter against Australia at the Penang Sport Club ground on February 22.

Today the tournament proper will get underway with four matches down for decision with defending champions Pakistan meeting host Malaysia in Johor Bahru in a Group 'A' encounter. Two matches in Group 'B' India vs Papua New Guinea and England vs Ireland at Kuala Lumpur and Australia meet Namibia at the Penang Sports Club ground.

The ICC U19 World Cricket Cup which began in 1988 which was then known as the Youth World Cup will be seventh in the series. The inaugural tournament hosted by Australia saw eight teams participating. That tournament was won by the host team. However after the first year it was dormant for while and revived after ten years in 1998 with an increase of eight more teams where England emerged winners in South Africa.

The 2000 edition hosted by Sri Lanka was won by India followed by Australia again coming out winners in 2002 when it was held in New Zealand. Pakistan emerged winners in 2004 in Bangladesh and then retained it for another year when they won it 2006 in Sri Lanka. They will be going all out to become the first ever team to win it three times in a row.