Sri Lanka captain Wanindu Hasaranga believes they’ve extensively discussed their repeated mistakes in big tournaments and now it’s time to shift their focus towards rectifying those faults, following the ignominy of another group league exit.
Hasaranga termed his team’s 83-run win against the Netherlands as something that came “too late” after losing their games against South Africa and Bangladesh in the group stage of the T20 World Cup.
“After every tournament, we gather around and discuss that we committed several mistakes. As a team, we should decide if we have to rectify those mistakes. I think we have not rectified our mistakes yet.
“As a captain, I feel very sorry about this,” Hasaranga didn’t beat around the bush after another inglorious first-round exit having finished ninth in the ODI World Cup last year.
“We have discussed our mistakes in this World Cup and from previous ODI World Cup as well. So as we have not rectified those we had to get out of this tournament this soon.”
The leg-spinner felt that it was the batting that led the team down.
“When we think of the bowing battalion, we are on the top in this tournament as well. Unfortunately, I know our batting wasn’t good enough as we expected and that’s why we had to get out of this tournament this early,” the skipper put the blame squarely on batters.
Hasaranga, however, didn’t want to read too much into social media comments where there has been an outpouring of emotions by the Sri Lankan cricket fans.
“As a player, we should not look at social media posts. What’s on social media is (posted) done by a small group of people to make (instigate) other fans angry. (Genuine) Sri Lanka fans are with us even if we lose the matches. We must be very lucky to have such kind of fans in Sri Lanka.”
