Dasun Shanaka (Sri Lanka) post-match press conference transcript: T20 World Cup 2022

Q. Opening game of the World Cup and nothing seemed to be going right. How do you assess the game and what exactly did go wrong?

DASUN SHANAKA: I think there’s nothing to worry about. It’s the first game. The way we played is the worry. I think we are a better team than this, and especially when it comes to the bowling. If you look at their bowling, they really bowled in good areas, where our bowlers didn’t do.

I think we should learn quickly from that and come back in the next game.

The other thing is batting. We can’t lose three wickets in powerplay, which makes it very tough to chase down anything over 150.

I think credit to their players, the way they played. That’s it.

Q. 160, did you think it would be a tough total, or were you confident that you could chase it down?

DASUN SHANAKA: No, it’s not a tough total. As I mentioned before, down three wickets in the powerplay makes it very hard to get back. So, we have done it in the past, so we have chased down 160 total. In this game what happened is the areas where they bowled were excellent.

Q. You mentioned the areas that you bowled. Your quicks bowled really well in the first 15 overs with hard lengths back at the lengths on pace and then why was the change to slow balls — what happened there? What happened in those last four overs where you didn’t seem to hit those spots?

DASUN SHANAKA: I think with the short boundaries, they tried too much. I think if they stick to that hard length, wicket to wicket, so what the Namibian bowlers did really well, so it should have been different.

Q. Namibia was six wickets for 93 runs at one stage. Between that period 70 runs, we just saw the original plan is not working and so during that period, what was happening in the bowling?

DASUN SHANAKA: I think after the sixth wicket fell down, what we should have done is to get the next wicket. I think our bowlers, they didn’t bowl to take the wickets. I think that’s the area we must think as experienced cricketers now. I think each and every has played some handful of games, so I think that’s the area we should learn quickly to take the wickets rather than giving balls to hit. I think we gave a lot of bad balls to hit boundaries.

Q. People say that it’s okay, now that you’ve lost the game there’s not much chance you’ll top the group, so you’d be avoiding teams like Australia, England and New Zealand, and you’ll be playing teams like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and South Africa. Would you be okay with that kind of setup?

DASUN SHANAKA: You see, it’s about playing the next two games. We don’t look at the groups that we’ll be going through. What is important and what should be done is to focus on the next two games and make sure get into the next round. Then we can plan accordingly.

Q. Dasun, can you give us a little bit of insight as to picking someone like Pramod Madushan ahead of Lahiru Kumara.

DASUN SHANAKA: If I ask from someone about the way Dushmantha Chameera bowled, you would have see how he bowled in the past. Two latecomers to the team without playing a single international game after injury, so we can’t expect both of them to perform like the way Pramod Madushan or Dilshan Madushanka did in the finals. At the same time you might ask if I keep Pramod Madushan out from here while Dilshan injured, why did you put out Dilshan Madushanka and put Lahiru in. In that manner we can argue on that.

Q. There were a lot of Sri Lankan fans in the crowd today. They go home disappointed, obviously. How concerned they should be that Sri Lanka is losing to a team like Namibia and have games like the UAE and Netherlands coming up?

DASUN SHANAKA: See, everyone wanted to win the game, so I think the fans, they were supporting throughout everywhere we go, so especially in Melbourne it’s a massive crowd. What we can do is to give them the winning thing back in the next two games. We will make sure that we are giving good fight in the next two games.

Q. Just on your preparations, was there any issues that you noticed beforehand that might have forecast a performance like this today?

DASUN SHANAKA: Not actually. We’ve been here since 2nd of October, so I think we’ve prepared really well, but our plans didn’t work. That’s the main reason I think we couldn’t cross that mark.

Q. My question is actually recently we have been seeing top of the colours from Sri Lanka like very much, like in Asia Cup it also happened. Most of the responsibility came on you and Rajapaksa. My question is when you have Dinesh Chandimal in your side who is pretty much experienced batter for such conditions where games are like high pressure, do you think he should be ahead of Gunathilaka since he has not been doing pretty well in last nine to ten matches?

DASUN SHANAKA: I think if you talk about the names, you’ve got a lot of names in our sides back home. It’s not about one person or two persons, it’s all about team.

I think Chandimal or someone like Angelo, there are a few other players, as well, back home. I think Charith Asalanka is the right option that we got in the squad, so what we need to do is get him into the side and make sure that he performs well in the next coming games.