Russel Arnold praises A team effort

Russel Arnold, Sri Lanka A's current captain, believes his young side of hopefuls, who have started a super-intensive programme of A team tours, are quickly learning and growing in self-belief.

Sri Lanka played impressively to win the recent Kenstar triangular tournament in Kolkata over the festive season, beating the hosts India in the final.

The team's performance was not as consistent as they would have liked -- they won their first two games easily, twice chasing over 300, but then lost both their second round matches -- but they performed when it mattered most.

"Our bowlers were not up to the mark in those two games but we batted very well to chase 300 and win," recalled Arnold, who is now pushing hard for a return to the national team.

"But in the next two matches our batting let us down. It's hard to tell why it happened. Maybe it was due to the slowness of the pitch, a little bit of over confidence on our part or the Indian and Pakistani bowlers had learnt their lessons from the previous games and bowled to a line."

"The loss to Pakistan almost shattered us. We had to depend on the outcome of the last qualifying match between India and Pakistan to know whether we had got into the final. When we actually qualified, we got our act together and performed to our potential to beat India in the final," said Arnold.

"The two losses made us work harder for success. We showed glimpses of what the team is capable of achieving under pressure. This performance will have to back up with consistency. What the last few months have shown is that we have started to believe that we can do things and compete with any team under different situations.

"We were not as strong as India and Pakistan, who had more established players in their sides but on that day everyone contributed towards the win. The support given by coach Hemantha Devapriya and manager Nuski Mohamed at all times was encouraging from the team's point. It helped lift our spirits whenever we were down," Arnold said.

With scores of 96 not out, 100 not out, 9, 9 and 35 not out, Arnold easily topped the tournament batting averages with 249 runs (avg. 124.50). Naveed Nawaz (203 runs), Saman Jayantha (186), Shantha Kalavitigoda (148) and Jehan Mubarak (143) were the other top order batsmen amongst the runs.

"I am quite happy with my batting form, but I will have to constantly get as many runs as possible," said the 30-year-old left-hander.

Schoolboy Mohamed Maharoof, a budding right-arm medium pacer, topped the bowling averages with nine wickets taken at a cost of 11.77. He excelled in the last two games to take eight wickets that included four in the final. Rangana Herath, a left-arm spinner who has performed consistently well in recent tours to South Africa and India, finished with eight wickets.

Nuski Mohamed, the manager, believes the new intensive A team programme will reap dividends and help narrow the gap between the senior team and their replacements.

"The whole purpose of each tour is to try and bridge this gap. We'll have to find star players who should be available to fill the vacancies at every beck and call," said Mohamed. "It is less evident in teams like India and Pakistan. We should also have a backup team of players ready to fill in the breach like the Australians. The only way to achieve that is to have more tours of this nature."

Sri Lanka A are due to tour New Zealand in March, England in May-June and Zimbabwe in October this year.