Asalanka stresses the need to get his side’s playing combinations right after the loss against Pakistan in Abu Dhabi.
Asalanka: Sri Lanka have to ‘get combinations right ahead of the World Cup’.
According to Sri Lanka skipper Charith Asalanka, who was the first of the two batters to be dismissed in that stretch, Pakistan won this Asia Cup Super Four match because of the back-to-back wickets in the eighth over of Sri Lanka’s innings.
Asalanka was caught at deep square-leg by Hussain Talat’s bowling with Sri Lanka at 58 for 3 after 7.1 overs. Dasun Shanaka stabbed a delivery in the channel with a slight edge to the wicketkeeper on the following ball. Suddenly, with nearly 60% of the overs left, Sri Lanka was five down. In the end, they stumbled to 133 for 8.
“Although we didn’t get a great start from the openers, at the end of the powerplay we still had 53 runs. We’d lost three wickets, but we were still in a good place, because it’s not easy to score that many in the powerplay,” Asalanka said. “But then myself and Dasun got out off successive deliveries, and that was when the biggest damage was done.
“Neither Dasun or I were going for big shots when we got out. I was trying to put the ball into a gap, but ended up top-edging it. Dasun also played a normal shot first up. But we have to take responsibility.”
With help from Wanindu Hasaranga and Chamika Karunaratne, Kamindu Mendis struck 50 off 44 balls, giving Sri Lanka something to bowl at.
“We lost five wickets in the first half of our innings, and against these kinds of teams it’s really hard to come back from that,” Asalanka said. “Kamindu and the others fought hard, but Wanindu also got out at a bad time, when it had felt like we could get to 150. In the end it was not enough.”
“We’ve had lots of issues with our combinations, and that’s something we have to get right ahead of the World Cup,” he said. “We tried going with an extra bowler today, but we lost a specialist batsman because of that, and didn’t score the runs we needed. Other times we’ve played an extra batsman and couldn’t defend a score with the ball.
“We need to figure out how to consistently score 180 to 200, and also how to use the part-time bowlers – myself, Dasun, Kamindu Mendis – better. Those are things we need to improve in the future.”