• Wanindu Hasaranga (Sri Lanka Captain) post-match Press Conference – 3rd June 2024

[Reporter:]

What is Sri Lanka’s lowest total in T20 cricket? How disappointing is it to start the World Cup in this manner?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

This was not a good start. But this is early in the tournament, so we try to do our best in the next game and we have three more games left in the first-round. We have to do our best in the next three games.

[Reporter:]

What was the thinking behind batting first after winning the toss?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

We have a strong bowling attack. We wanted to put a good score and we just wanted to defend. So that’s why we made that decision.

[Reporter:]

The way the bowlers fought back defending a small total, you must be pretty pleased with the manner that they went about the things?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

Of course, you know, especially the fast bowlers, they bowled really well with the new ball. If he had 120 – 125 plus, I think this game will be changed.

[Reporter:]

We saw that the pitch had a lot of seam movement and uneven bounce. Do you think you could have played at least one higher release point bowler, maybe like Chameera, so that you get the maximum uneven bounce of seam movement out of the pitch?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

We went with Nuwan Tushara because he had played a few games in the IPL and Dushmantha didn’t play matches in IPL. Dushmantha didn’t play matches since last week,so that’s why we went with Nuwan Tushara – and he had five wickets in his last T20 international. So, we went with him. But still, you know, we saw the difference, you know, bounce and low bounce in the wickets still when we are bowling.

[Reporter:]

You had some challenges with the travel and then being far from the ground and you were not able to train. Does that kind of have an impact on the performance on the day?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

We can’t say that, but we had tough times, especially in the last few days. We still travel one and a half hours in the morning and we have our first round four games in four venues. It’s hard but we don’t know about the wicket set and this is our first game in New York and we have next game in Dallas, so we don’t know. We play two practice games in Florida, that’s the only plus point we have.

[Reporter:]

The way the pitch played, the two paced nature of it, did that surprise you?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

Yeah, especially in this big tournament. These wickets are very hard, especially in T20’s, and their bowlers bowled really well and our bowlers have bowled well as well. Still, we did a lot of mistakes.

[Reporter:]

Do you think your kind of attacking batsman might need to curb their natural game on some of these pitches? If it continues in this way?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

All our batsmen try to attack. I think this would have been a higher score if we had tried to attack every ball. So, we threw our wickets away. That’s the main thing. If we played good cricket shots, I think the score would have been different.

[Reporter:]

You’ve shown an interest in cricket in the US before last year you signed for the Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket. What was the experience like today playing in New York, playing at the stadium in front of a New York crowd? And how do you feel about the potential of cricket in the U.S going forward?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

The crowd was fantastic. You know, the Sri Lankan crowd support us everywhere in the world. So that’s a good point for us. The wicket was not good and was very hard to bat on. There were lots of variations in our bowling but the crowd was still fantastic and they helped us a lot.

[Reporter:]

I will ask the same question again: This pitch is unfamiliar to us, so why did you all decide to bat first? If we win the toss in the next match also, what kind of plan do we have? Also, I would like to know why we took Mathisha a bit later, even though we had a chance of keeping the score a little low.

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

I can’t say anything about the next match yet. Maybe we need to see the wicket first, as we have not played on this ground. Our strength is bowling, so we thought that we could win the toss, put some score on the board, and pressure them. Because we know our bowling, we have won the past few T20 matches as we decided to ball secondly. So that was a decision made as a team with our current strength. But we saw that how was the pressure that we gave them even we balled secondly. We kept bowling for 16 overs for them to reach the score of 70. So, I see there is nothing wrong with the decision that we made, but the target we set was not right. Even though the wicket was that hard, we were having a big target as a team till the end, and I think we identified it later. That’s what happened there. So, I think if we could have changed the target and keep it as 125 or 130, it could have gone up to 180+ in another ground. As we played on this ground, we realized that the ball doesn’t move well on the ground. So, I think we should share our ideas as a team while we are in the game.

[Reporter:]

Pathirana’s issue?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

In Pathirana’s issue, we saw that Pathirana is reversing from the old ball. And we so how Dasun Shanaka, Nuwan Thushara and Angelo Mathews balled well with the new ball. I think what we planned went well and Matheesha did a good job in bowling. But we didn’t get the score we wanted on the board.

[Reporter:]

Wanindu, didn’t you think that we assessed incorrectly? So, we saw a few fast shots including yours between the first 5, 6 overs, so was there any assessment of having a target of 120 will be enough in the middle of that?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

I said this before, we didn’t have that discussion. We targeted 160+. So, I think that was our mistake, if the batsmen had that discussion including my self to have for a target of 130 as in this ground that seems like to be a score of 180. If we have done that, we could have gone to a good score.

[Reporter:]

Wanindu you batted at number 4 ?

[Wanindu Hasaranga:]

I wanted to increase the run rate, so I wanted to attack the spinner. I have tried this in previous matches, but unfortunately, I got out. In the future also we will be trying to do that again after discussing with our batting coach and the coaches if we have a spin attack with another team. I have done that previously.