The target we set was not right: Hasaranga

Sri Lankan skipper Wanindu Hasaranga defended his decision to bat first against South Africa on a sluggish New York surface on June 3 (Monday). Opting to bat in their opening fixture of the 2024 T20 World Cup, Sri Lanka were bundled out for just 77 in 19.1 overs. 

Not a single Sri Lankan batter went past the 20-run mark and scored at a strike rate of more than 100. They fought well in the second innings, with South Africa taking 16.2 overs to hunt down the target. When asked about the toss, Hasaranga said the decision was made keeping their strong bowling in mind.

“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 second,” said Hasaranga.

“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 when we bowled second. 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 had a big target as a team till the end, and I think we identified it later. That’s what happened there. 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.”

Sri Lanka’s top three - Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis - took 53 deliveries between them to score 33 runs. As a result, Hasaranga promoted himself to No.4 but the ploy didn’t work as he fell to Keshav Maharaj without opening his account. 

“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, so yeah that’s it.”

Talking about the preparation and scheduling, the legspinner said, “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 and this is our first game in New York and we have the next game in Dallas.”

Sri Lanka are placed in Group D and have their remaining games against Bangladesh (June 8), Nepal (June 11) and the Netherlands (June 16). Hasaranga said Sri Lanka can still make a comeback in this tournament and also heaped heavy praise on the bowling unit.

“The fast bowlers, they bowled really well with the new ball. If he had 120-125 plus, I think this game will be changed. 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.”

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