Mahela Jayawardene rues lack of partnerships against Australia

Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene has admitted that lack of partnerships was the biggest reason behind his team’s defeat at the hands of Australia in the final of the tri-angular series on Thursday.

The islanders did well to restrict Australia to 231. However, Sri Lanka failed to get off to a good start with the bat and lost first four wickets cheaply.

Tharanga steered his side to a strong position by scoring a fine half-century, but he lost his wicket at a crucial juncture. Since the lower middle order could not contribute anything special, the tourists fell short by 16 runs.

Saddened by his team’s ordinary performance in the finale, Jayawardene stated that his batsmen failed to build partnerships and everything went against the plan.

"Initially if we were given 231 we would have taken it. They put a lot of pressure on us, we fought well but the lack of partnerships upfront did us. We could not execute a good game plan," Jayawardene said after the match.

Despite lamenting over Sri Lanka’s poor show in the final game, Jayawardene was satisfied with his team’s overall performance on the tour. He shared that the guys did a fine job by playing very good cricket against world’s two best sides, Australia and India.

"Very proud of the boys against two quality teams (Australia and India). The objective is to rebuild for the next four years and we’ve learnt a lot and I’m proud of the youngsters," he said.

Sri Lanka’s immediate objective is to perpetuate their good work to the Asia Cup. The Lankans will meet India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in the tournament. After a decent performance in the tough conditions in Australia, the Lankans will be full of high spirits.
Thus, they have an obvious chance in the imminent Asia Cup.

On the other hand, the Australian captain, Michael Clarke was delighted with his players’ effort. A hamstring injury forced Clarke out of the game, but he stayed near the boundary line and kept motivating his players.

"Much better team without me I reckon. The boys were very good with the ball. I was a bit harsh on them in the previous matches but they did really well today. All the boys have a few more grey hairs," he added. 

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Posted by Rana Nasir Ghafoor on Mar 9 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