We failed to live up to expectations, says Chamari

Sri Lanka team came to the T – 20 world cup with high expectations after good performance during last 12 months. They were crowned Asia Cup champions defeating India in the final while beating top teams like England, New Zealand and South Africa but failed to live upto expectations in the T – 20 world cup tournament in UAE.

” We as a batting unit didn’t play our best cricket throughout this T -20 world cup tournament. We improved a little bit in last Game against New Zealand but we needed another 20-25 runs. The bowlers did their best said Sri Lanka skipper Chamari Athapaththu.

Sri Lanka team passed 100 run mark only once against New Zealand and Athapaththu was able to score her highest of 35 in last game against New Zealand while Vishmi Gunaratne,Harshitha Samarawickrama also not among the runs and this was the biggest issue during this tournament. Vishmi Gunaratne scored only 20 against Pakistan followed by two ducks against Australia and India and managed to get 8 runs against New Zealand. Harsitha Samarawickrama scored 7 only 23,3 and 18 in four matches. All rounder Kavisha Dilhari also not impress with both bat and ball.

Captain Athapaththu the left hand opener will be personally disappointed with her performance in the tournament. The 34-year-old is the fifth-best all-rounder in the game, ranks in the top ten in the world for batting alone, and was one of the form players in the game coming into the World Cup.But her achievement was far below and couldn’t reach double figures in first three matches as an opener which also put more pressure for Sri Lanka side. First three matches Chamari Athapaththu scored 6,3,1 and she was back in the pavilion with out completing double figures.

Chamari Athapaththu further said after her team’s final game that it is the batters who shoulder much of the responsibility for the team’s poor returns and we should work out this issue seriously in next matches.

“I told my team mates to play fearless and positive cricket. We had nothing to lose, tried to execute, but it was not enough against New Zealand.

So, in the last 48 to 72 hours, we were trying to work it out, I mean what really went wrong. So that’s a work in progress and that’s the thing which we have to work for the future so that this will not happen again added Athapaththu.

“We lost our first game and then our mindset was going down. We kept trying to turn it around but it did not work and finally we couldn’t win a single game which never expected in this competition.

Even as the team’s on-field fortunes continued to go downhill, the support from the Sri Lankan fans in the United Arab Emirates remained strong and we apologised to them as we couldn’t do our best to come forward . Especially not only batting li last t two games Sri Lanka fielding and bowling all not up to the expectations.

Sri Lanka started their campaign poorly against Pakistan and were subsequently well-beaten by Australia, India and New Zealand in an admittedly tough Group A.