Sangakkara pleased with chase under lights
What pleased captain Kumar Sangakkara most about Sri Lanka's win against West Indies in their warm-up match was that they chased a competitive total of 281 batting under lights
Sa'adi Thawfeeq
16-Feb-2011
Kumar Sangakkara scored a steady 71 in Sri Lanka's successful chase in their warm-up match against West Indies • AFP
Sri Lanka completed their World Cup preparations on a high note defeating West Indies by four wickets at the R Premadasa Stadium on Tuesday. What pleased captain Kumar Sangakkara most about the win was that they chased a competitive total of 281 batting under lights, and won with 15 balls to spare.
"Mentally we are slightly better than a couple of years ago. I always maintained it was hard to chase under lights at one time but sides have done it before," Sangakkara said.
"Sometimes you get too caught up with thinking you can't do things under lights. It's more about believing that you can. If it doesn't work out, try to analyse and see what went wrong and how you can do things better."
Sri Lanka have had nine successful run chases out of 13 under lights in the last two years, but the last three times they had to bat second in a day-night match at the Premadasa, they fell short. Though most teams win the toss and bat first in Sri Lanka, as West Indies did on Tuesday, Sangakkara said he wanted to bat second in the warm-up game to prepare for any situation during the World Cup.
"We were anyway going to bat second if we had won the toss. The wicket was much better than we expected. It had good bounce, enough turn and all in all was a good track to bat on even chasing."
Even though Sri Lanka have won both their warm up games, against Netherlands and West Indies, Sangakkara said there was still work to do before the World Cup. "Preparation wise there is still a lot of work to be done and we don't have much time. The first 15 overs [of the match against West Indies] were not good enough for World Cup cricket. We cannot allow 100 runs off the first 11-12 overs. Chasing, we should have finished the game off with one or two wickets less than what it cost us."
Sangakkara stated that his team was pretty settled with their XI although in the two warm-up games they played all 15 players, with the batters getting a bat and the bowlers a bowl.
"The guys need to be able to go out there and play. If a few of the players don't play any warm-up games sometimes they feel left out. It's nice to be in a group who's always playing."