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Samarawickrama pleads for patience as Sri Lanka seeks form resurgence

Opener seeks improvements on match-by-match basis after team's two years in the doldrums

Sadeera Samarawickrama flicks the ball to leg  •  AFP

Sadeera Samarawickrama flicks the ball to leg  •  AFP

Sri Lanka's fans have been unhappy with the ODI side for almost two years - that much is abundantly clear. Through that period, fans have expressed their dismay with a minor protest in Dambulla, a pelting of empty plastic bottles on to the field in Pallekele, and with this decade's most popular insult medium: the social media meme.
Disenchantment with the team and the nation's cricket establishment was perhaps higher last year, when Thilanga Sumathipala and Sanath Jayasuriya had forged a wildly unpopular partnership as board president and chief selector. But the ODI team hasn't exactly turned its form around since both those made their exits. With 32 losses from the last 42 completed ODIs now, even junior players making their way into the side, such as 23-year-old batsman Sadeera Samarawickrama, are having to contend with public displeasure.
"I know the spectators must be very disappointed about the way we have played," Samarawickrama said ahead of the fourth ODI. "But we also want to turn it around. We want to see the fans happy. We want to go from a losing mentality to a winning one."
That the World Cup is on the horizon is, of course, of particular worry for Sri Lanka fans, with hope diminishing that the team will be able to hit form by the time the big tournament comes around in June. For Samarawickrama, though, the World Cup is too far away to worry about just yet.
"If we think too much about the World Cup right now, we'll be under even more pressure when we get to the next match," he said. "So what we have to do is to take it series by series and match by match as a team.  We've still got three series before the World Cup."
On a personal note, Samarawickrama was pleased to be offered the opening position, having scored most of his domestic runs as an opener, and he appears to have been given assurances that he will stay in that position, for now. He is the fifth batsman who has played in that position this year for Sri Lanka, with Kusal Mendis, Upul Tharanga, Danushka Gunathilaka, and Niroshan Dickwella being the others.
Samarawickrama's first run in the role produced a middling performance - he hit 35 off 34 balls in a 21-over game.
"I really like to open the innings. When they told me I'd be opening, I got a lot of confidence. It's not that I don't like batting in the middle order, but that I like to play at the top. I was able to handle the pressure because in the recent past it's while I've been opening that I've scored a lot of runs. I took that confidence forward. I didn't put it in my head that I was playing England, or think too seriously about it. I just did the basics."

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo's Sri Lanka correspondent. @afidelf