Dreadful fielding continued to haunt Sri Lanka throughout the series and skipper Angelo Mathews accepted that a couple of errors in the field cost them the match in the final one day international against South Africa handing over the maiden series victory for the tourists on Sri Lankan soil.
“We don’t deserve to win for the way we played today. We started pretty poorly and were flat on the field. We missed a couple of crucial chances and that cost us the game,” said Mathews in the post match press conference.
This is also not the first time Sri Lanka allowed a match to slip through their hands due to fielding errors as local media recently revealed a report made by SLC’s head of Cricket Operations Carlton Bernardus which described about the woeful level of fielding and physical fitness of the National and A team players and suggested specially design fitness training programme to enhance the level of fitness and fielding particularly targeting the upcoming World Cup.
In the concluded ODI series all rounder Ashan Priyanjan accounted for two dropped catches with the costliest being that of centurion Quinton de Kock in the tenth over when he was on just 37 runs.
Prior to this Priyanjan had dropped David Miller in a pretty straight forward catch. By this time Priyanjan’s inclusion had created a controversy having replaced hard hitting all rounder Thisara Perera who was omitted throughout the series.
Perera is said to have returned to Colombo by Friday night prior to third ODI stating medical reasons. SLC had later removed him from Sri Lanka A team squad for the tour of England stating that he has been rested on medical advice.
Perera who took the field as a substitute fielder in the first ODI, dropped the catch offered by the most fearsome batsmen in Hashim Amla and skipper Angelo Mathews dropped opposition captain AB de Villiers. This cost the first game for Sri Lanka bringing them down to ground level after a highly successful away season.
Kumar Sangakkara too dropped Hashim Amla in the second ODI where Amla went on to score his second successive century.
Nevertheless, skipper Angelo Mathews accepted that nothing went right for them in the final match.
“We had our chances when chasing. If we had wickets in hand we could have achieved the target but we tried for too many runs too soon and ended up giving wickets.”
Mathews also stated that contributions were lacking from leading batsmen in recent games.
“Dilshan and Sangakkara were among the runs but there are seven other batsmen in the side and no matter who they are all must contribute. We can’t expect two guys to score for us every time,” concluded Mathews.
