Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews refused to be drawn into talking about South Africa as chokers ahead of the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup quarter-final at the SCG on Wednesday.
He said both teams would be nervous and the team that makes the fewer mistakes under pressure would win.
“We know that the South Africans are a very hard team to beat, especially in this tournament,” Mathews said. “They’ve come out really hard and they have a good, balanced team. The history, it is history. You can’t really take anything from it and you’ve got to move on and look forward to the games that you play. We have to perform well to beat the South Africans.”
Mathews said it would be a tough game for both teams. “We’ve come to the business end of the tournament, and whoever makes less mistakes will obviously go on to win. We’re just trying not to put too much pressure on ourselves. Just take it as just another game and try to win it,” he said.
Mathews readily admitted that Sri Lanka’s bowling and fielding had been lacking consistency. “We haven’t been at our best in our bowling and fielding, and the batters have been pretty good, so hopefully they can continue and we can improve on our bowling and fielding in tomorrow’s game,” he said.
Excerpts from Mathews interaction with the media:
On trying to make it memorable for Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene:
We’ve talked about it quite a lot, and we look to try to make this tournament a memorable one for them. They’ve been performing really well. Kumar has been brilliant in the past four games for us, and hopefully he can get one more (hundred) tomorrow. Obviously, Kumar is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen. He’s the first one to get into the nets and the last to get out of the nets. Mahela got a brilliant hundred against Afghanistan but since then he hasn’t had the opportunity to have a good knock. He is a big match player and the top four have to score runs for us to be in contention. Hopefully, we can make it an historical one winning tomorrow and go into the semi-finals again. Hopefully, we can go to the final and win there and make it historical for the legends. But before looking at the final, we need to try to take one game at a time.
On left-arm spinner Rangana Herath:
He’s still 50-50. He hasn’t had a bowl yet. We gave him a couple of extra days two days ago. But, the physio will have a look at him again today. If he bowls at practice, he’ll be in contention for selection. If not, he won’t be playing. We have our options open. We’ll have to see Rangana how he goes at the nets and then make a call.
(Subsequently, Herath was ruled out of the quarter-finals)
On finding the balance:
We don’t look to compromise our batting to bowling or bowling to batting. We have to have a balanced team. We have got to have the team to do it whether we bat first or bowl first. We’ll try to make it as balanced as possible. Hopefully we can bring out the best. We have had a few injuries but we’ve got a squad of 15. So whoever gets the opportunity, we’ll obviously try to grab that. Also we’ve got certain combinations that we can use.
On young pace bowler Dushmantha Chameera:
He bowls quite fast and he hits that 147 kmph mark which is extraordinary for a Sri Lankan bowler. I think he’s played only two games, but he’s mature. All we want him to do is go out there and bowl fast. We don’t want him to over-react to the batsmen or anything. We just want him to go out there and bowl fast. So we have the confidence that if he plays tomorrow, he’ll be up for it.
On having played a World Cup game against Australia at SCG:
Yeah, we had a chance to look at the wicket yesterday. It was greener (than the pitch against Australia). It was a very good wicket. We thought it would spin but it didn’t. It turned a little bit but not as expected. We all know it’s a very good pitch for batting, so there will be plenty of runs scored.
On the support the team has got from the crowd:
We’ve been getting tremendous support wherever we played in Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, especially in Melbourne and Sydney, it’s like playing at home. It’s such a wonderful atmosphere. We invite all the Sri Lankans across Australia to come to Sydney, fill up those stands. The support is tremendous. So we look forward to playing in front of a large crowd.
On the key to Sri Lanka’s successes in knockout games in recent years:
I think as a team we shouldn’t put a lot of pressure on ourselves. We just have to approach it positively and aggressively just as we did early in the first round games. I think that when you come to the knockout stages, most teams will think that you can’t afford to do mistakes or you’ll be out of the tournament. We have to get rid of that kind of attitude. You have to play good cricket, back yourselves and go out there and enjoy yourselves.
On South African spearheads AB de Villiers and Dale Steyn:
We all know that de Villiers is a destructive player. When he gets going, it’s really hard to stop him. So we’ll look to attack him early on so we can try to get his wicket and push South Africa back. Steyn is a very good bowler, so we have plans against him. If we execute the plans well, we can tie them down and be attacking.
On Jeremy Snape’s role in the team:
When you come to a tournament like this, there is a lot of pressure on the players. So Jeremy’s role has been to try to reduce the amount of pressure on the players. He’s been talking to a lot of players individually and as a team. So he’s been very helpful. He helps us out a lot in so many ways.
