Sri Lankan captain Dimuth Karunaratne on Tuesday, 11th June, said his team doesn’t want free points, rather they would like to play and gain the points by winning the matches in the ongoing ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 after the Islanders’ second successive match was washed-out in the tournament.
Despite the match rained out, Sri Lanka is comfortably sitting on the fifth position after four matches, but Karunaratne said it was tough for his side to keep switching on and off with the unpredictable weather in England.
Karunaratne told reporters, “We want to play cricket and win games and gain the points. That's what I think. I think, unfortunately, the rain has - you know, raining all of the places. But well, we're happy with the points and we are going for the next match.”
The skipper continued, “It is a bad time for us. We just play some cards (to keep occupied during the rain), but it isn’t easy. We have to switch on and off the entire time. These kind of things happen but we have to get used to it. If they can put a reserve day, it's fine, but I don't think they can keep a reserve day for us, because after the next day, you have to travel to the different venue, so it's not easy.”
Now, the Islanders will next play Australia on 15th June at The Oval next on Saturday and the skipper said his players are preparing hard for the crucial match.
He further added, “Every game is a challenging game. I think the last game we played before, till the Australian game we played Afghanistan, it will be 11 days' gap. So, I think we need to prepare for the games, after winning, and we need momentum for that game I think.”
Karunaratne signed off by saying, “But we are trying hard. We played a practice game against Australia. We know how they are, and how they are going to play with us, so those are the things we have to look after, and we keep planning and doing the right things and hopefully we can do - hopefully, we can play a game. In every match, we have to play for a win.”
(With Cricketnext Inputs)
