Sri Lanka secured a much-needed victory against Afghanistan to keep their slender hopes of qualification for the semifinals alive. Naveed Nawaz, Sri Lanka’s assistant coach, said it was an important victory for the team who also tried to reach the target of 145 as soon as possible for a lift in their net run rate but were able to finish it only in the penultimate over.
“Yeah, the net run rate was important. On the other hand, the win was important as well,” said Nawaz when asked if Sri Lanka could have got to the target sooner. “So we were keeping an eye on the net run rate as well while trying to secure a win. That was the most important thing for us. At the rate things were going, we were chasing 144, which we needed to get in at least 18-plus overs, which would jack up our net run rate into a decent position.”
Sri Lanka, with two wins from four games, will play against England in their final group encounter. Nawaz said they will go out with a positive mindset, attempting to win the game and boost their net run rate while hoping for other results to go their way.
“There’s one more game to go, and I think in our minds we’ve got to go hard and we’ve got to win that game and see where the tournament ends up. I think we’ll have to depend on how Australia goes in their next game to see if we have got any outside chance of making it to the semis,” he said.
Dhananjaya de Silva was the star batter for Sri Lanka in this game, with his unbeaten 66 off 42 helping the team over the line with six wickets in hand. He was involved in useful partnerships with Kusal Mendis, Charith Asalanka and Bhanuka Rajapaksa as Sri Lanka came up with a much-improved effort with the bat compared to their previous game where they had slipped to 24 for 5 against New Zealand.
“It’s always the case that we’ve been talking to lose less wickets during the powerplay as well as the first ten overs, where if you look at the pattern that’s building in most teams, the number of runs that you get in the first ten overs has been far less than the subcontinent. And the number of runs you get at the bottom end has been quite a bit. So that’s always been our plan during this World Cup, and whenever we had a good opening stand or someone taking responsibility from the top to move on, we’ve done well,” said Nawaz.
“I think it’s a relief that Dhananjaya is coming into runs. He’s always shown potential — 30s, 40s, 20s all the time. But I think it’s good to see him finishing a game and coming through that game over 60 not out, which is a good sign for us,” he added.
Nawaz also heaped praise on Wanindu Hasaranga, who finished with 3 for 13, which included two wickets and only three runs in the 20th over. “He’s always been one of our main bowlers and one of the top bowlers in the world. So that’s why we back him to bowl in the last over of the game as well, and he handled it brilliantly, bowled really well. I think that was one of the reasons that we could keep the Afghans below 150.”
Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s hopes of progressing further came to an end with this loss. Head coach Jonathan Trott said it was a mixed-bag campaign for the team where there didn’t capitalise on chances. He provided examples of the matches against England and also this game, where Afghanistan weren’t able to finish well with the bat.
“I’d say there’s been some good parts and there’s been some really average parts. We haven’t got things right. We seem to be able to get ourselves into positions but then not utilise them and actually then kick on with the batting,” Trott said. “So twice now, against England and this game. I’m not saying against England we would have had a massive score, but we would have certainly been able to put a lot more pressure on England if we’d been a little bit smarter in the last couple overs, and the same here.
“I think we lost four overs and we only got 31 runs, so 24 balls. Only being four wickets down, that’s not good enough. Those sort of areas are what can sort of take the game away from the opposition, or if you don’t get it right, bring them back into it,” he said. “We were definitely a few runs short. When your last over goes to three runs, you certainly left a few out there. We could have done a lot better with the bat. We got into position to kick on and didn’t utilise the short boundary anywhere near enough.”