Sri Lanka cricketer Chamika Karunaratne said the hosts knew that India is a top team and would attack, but lamented that if his team would have been able to take a couple of wickets in the powerplay, the result would have been different after losing the first ODI on Sunday (July 18) in Colombo.
In the three-match ODI series opener on Sunday, India kept on taking wickets at regular intervals with Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Deepak Chahar each taking two wickets, but Chamika Karunaratne's 43* helped Sri Lanka post 262/9 in Colombo.
Defending the total, Sri Lanka failed to take wickets and put pressure on the Indian cricket team as Dhananjaya de Silva (2 wickets) and Lakshan Sandakan (1 wicket) could only manage to take three wickets as the tourists won the first ODI by 7 wickets to take a 1-0 lead in the ODI series on Sunday.
Karunaratne said during a virtual post-match press conference: “We tried to get wickets rather than bowl dot balls. We tried to use our bouncers and our pace. They are a top team and we knew they would attack us. If we'd taken wickets we would have been able to pull them back. We were able to get one in the powerplay, and if we'd had another one or two in the powerplay we would have been able to change the game a little bit.”
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Meanwhile, none of the Sri Lankan cricketers could score more than 43 runs with Karunaratne being the highest run-getter for the hosts against India in the first ODI.
He said on the batting show, “A lot of our batsmen got good starts, but a lot of us weren't able to continue. We were trying to play longer innings, even when I was batting with Dasun Shanaka in the 42nd or 43rd over I asked him if I should go for some big shots, but he told me to wait until the 45th over. If more of our batsmen had been able to bat longer, we could have attacked earlier and gone for a bigger score. We do have the ability to get to 300 or 350, and hopefully, that will happen in the next games.”
Karunaratne signed off by saying, “This wicket was playing a bit slow, so we did talk during our innings about putting the ball into gaps and running hard a little bit more. But they also bowled really well. They bowled in good areas and their captain managed the field well.”
(With ANI Inputs)
