Sri Lanka not looking too far ahead: Dhananjaya de Silva on WTC final prospects

Sri Lanka have won three Tests in a row, including a 2-0 series win over New Zealand at home. Doing so has put them in the hunt for a place in the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25 final. They are currently in third position with a win percentage of 55.56, only behind Australia (62.50%) and India (71.67%).

Sri Lanka will play a couple of Tests in South Africa in December, before taking on the Aussies at home in January-February, 2025. So, do they have a real chance of pipping one of Australia or India on their way to the final? Skipper Dhananjaya de Silva refused to get sucked into such a discussion.

"We're only looking at it from one match to another," Dhananjaya said after his side's massive victory in the second Test against New Zealand in Galle. 

"If you look too far ahead you can miss out on what's immediately important. It's what I always tell the young players as well, if you do what's required from one match to another, then what needs to happen in the points table will take care of itself."

One of the youngsters in the side, Kamnidu Mendis, scripted history enroute his unbeaten 182, becoming the fastest Sri Lankan to 1,000 Test runs, getting there in only 13 innings. There was enough time for Kamindu to get to his maiden double century, but de Silva decided to declare. He says he was more relieved to see Kusal Mendis score a ton, as wicketkeeper-batter had not done so in a while. 

"More than Kamindu's double hundred, I wanted Kusal Mendis to get a hundred because he hadn't scored one in quite some time," he said. 

"But once we got to that point in the match, I think that was the best decision to take."

Kamindu, though, has no regrets about the declaration, saying that the call was made at the right time. "We had put a big total on the board; even at lunch, I had 136. So the plan even then was to score a little bit more and then put them into bat," Kamindu said. 

"I think the decision was taken at the right time because we all know that in Galle batting in the last hour is quite difficult. And I think it's because of that decision that we were able to bowl them out the following morning."

De Silva was also full of praise for debutant Nishan Peiris, who finished with nine wickets in the match.

"Nishan had bowled really well in domestic cricket for quite some time, and what I had stressed on was to bring in a bowler that could keep the economy rate low, especially on a turning track," Dhananjaya said. 

"That's how you put pressure on the opposition, with Prabath [Jayasuriya] at the other end. And I think he did his job excellently in this game."

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