Sri Lankan cricketers are hopeful that local fans will give a grand send off to the Big Three – Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Tillekeratne Dilshan, who will be playing their last ODI series at home.
“Yes, this will be their last series. They are the foundation of our team. They have won us so many games. I sincerely hope the fans will turn up in numbers and give them a good send off,” Lahiru Thirimanne told journalists yesterday.
Thirimanne said that the series is a good opportunity for the side ahead of the World Cup to sort out a few issues. “As a team we are training hard in the last week or so. We have a good opportunity ahead of the World Cup by competing on our home soil,” Thirimanne added.
“We had a bad tour of India. We had some very good training sessions trying to fix some of those problems. Some of our bowlers had specific bowling sessions and everyone is looking forward to have a go tomorrow.”
The fast bowlers in particular struggled during the humiliating 5-0 defeat in India and Thirimanne was hopeful they will come good. “When it comes to the death overs you need someone with experience. Some of the young guys we have are talented, but they struggle to cope with the last few overs. I feel that they get excited. In the last week during training we tried to discuss this a lot. We need to execute plans and keep it simple. We don’t have Nuwan Kulasekara as well so the responsibility on young guys will be huge,” Thirimanne added.
Thirimanne agreed that the Sri Lankans didn’t use the Batting Power Play well during the India series. “I don’t think we used the Batting Power Play properly in India. We got it wrong. We had a chat about how to use the Batting Power Play. We don’t want to take it in the 35th over and instead we will take it earlier. We have a plan for that.”
