Plan ready to beat Sri Lanka in tri-series decider, says Micky Arthur

Australian coach Micky Arthur has said that his team should learn a lesson from their embarrassing defeat in the second of the best-of-three finals, adding that the plan to beat Sri Lanka in the tri-series decider is ready.

The Kangaroos were helpless in the second final, as the islanders cruised to an emphatic eight-wicket victory. Courtesy to Michael Clarke and David Warner’s hundreds, the Aussies piled up 271 runs in the allotted quota of 50 overs.

However, the target seemed quite easy for the tourists, as Mahela Jayawardene and Tillakaratne Dilshan collected 179 for the first-wicket-stand. Dilshan scored a ton while the Lankan skipper played a fantastic knock of 80 runs.

After their departure, Kumar Sangakkara took the responsibility and took his side home by smashing a classy half-century. Arthur admitted that the Australian players were pathetic in the last game, but hoped that they will bounce back when it matters most.

Talking about his team’s strategy for the grand finale, he said, "It simply wasn’t good enough. There was no excuse for it. Our execution has been questionable at times but Adelaide is different conditions to the Gabba, so we have to go around tinkering
our game plans just a little bit."

"Our plans were similar for the first two finals and that was probably a little bit of a default on our part. We have had another look. And we need to play in a different way in these conditions which are totally different. We have had a couple of serious
chats … we are looking at ways we can beat Sri Lanka in these conditions. We will have a couple of tricks up our sleeve tomorrow and hopefully they work for us. We have given a lot of thought to them," added the former South African cricketer.

In order to strengthen their bowling attack, the Australians are likely to bring in Nathan Lyon as injured James Pattinson’s replacement. The mentor also made it clear that the Kangaroos will have to be bold in the initial 10 overs.

On the importance of first powerplay overs, the coach described, "We were 1-39, they were 0-78 (after 10 overs on Tuesday) and that is a huge differential. And they’re certainly going to play that way again tomorrow. That is why we need to stay one or two
steps ahead and our game plan will reflect that."

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Mar 7 2012. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry