Sri Lankan batsman Sadeera Samarawickrama feels that the Sri Lankan cricket fans are currently very disappointed after their recent unmotivated performances in the international cricket. However, he further added that they want to turn around the present struggling situation as soon as possible.
After losing the first two games of the group stages in the Asia Cup 2018 in UAE in last month and got eliminated from that first round, Sri Lanka has suffered two defeats in the first three matches of the ongoing five-match home ODI series against England. In the ongoing rain-affected home ODI series, Sri Lanka is 0-2 behind after the first three matches while the first match of the series had no results.
Talking about fans’ feeling, Samarawickrama said, “I know the spectators must be very disappointed about the way we have played. 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.”
While the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup in England is just more than seven months to go, Samarawickrama and the teammates don’t want to think too much about the World Cup as it can put them under more pressure. Samarawickrama believes they have to move forward by focusing on the next match.
He said, “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. 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.”
During the third ODI of the ongoing series, the 23-year-old right-handed batsman returned to the national team after around one-year later. Coming to bat as an opener in that game, Samarawickrama scored 35 off 34 balls (4 fours) before the English leg-spinner Adil Rashid dismissed him.
Samarawickrama said he likes to bat at the opening slots as he quoted, “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.”
