The Sri Lankan cricketers who were thrashed by the South Africans in the first game, will have to raise their game if they hope to contest the Standard Bank triangular finals, scheduled to be held later in the month.
Admitted that they were beaten by a team much superior to them. But the Lankans seemed to lack commitment and unless they change their attitude and make it their business to maintain their standing as world champions in this style of game by performing as they can, we are afraid they will be tagged as also played.
They now front up to the Pakistanis here tomorrow in a game that has been labelled as one between 'the beats'. The Pakistanis came back strongly against South Africa in the first game and had their early batsmen obliged they could have toppled their opponents.
While the Lankan batting has slumped somewhat, it was sad to see this once world's best fielding side not performing at their best. The ground fielding especially other than for Chandana and Muralidaran was a sad sight.
The bowlers too, especially Vaas and Wickremasinghe were most of the time off line. Vaas can be excused because he was nursing an injured ankle. Aravinda de Silva, Muralidaran and Chandana were among the wickets, but they went for too many unnecessary runs.
In this type of game the fielding has to be tops. If this is not so then the team fielding poorly has no chance. That 'catches win matches' is an adage that we need not tell the Lankans.
It is time that the Lankans restored Kaluwitharana to the openers slot, so that we could once again combine with Jayasuriya to give them that once famous flying start. Atapattu could bat one drop and Mahanama could move back to Kaluwitharana's spot.
True this is the first game that the Lankans lost which does not mean that they panic. But a batting change could do them and their game a lot of good.
It was nice to see Upul Chandana continuing to grow in stature as an allrounder. He pitched and varied his leg-breaks cleverly and his three wickets was rich reward. He batted sensibly and his 26 was well made runs.
The Lankans will do well not to take the Pakistanis lightly. Individually they are brilliant. It is a pity that they are not playing as a team. They showed that they have it in them to come from behind, the way they stretched the South Africans.
Saeed Anwar, Afridi, Sohail, Ahmed, Inzamum if he plays, Azhar Mahmood and Abdul Razack are all hard hitting and free scoring batsmen once they get their eye in. They have a penetrative attack led by two of the most feared fast bowlers in the game today Akram and Younis. This pair is backed by Mahmood, Afridi, Sohail and Akthar.
The Sri Lankans fielding in the country are hesitating to chase the ball and stop it before it crosses the line. The reason apparently for this is because there are guard dogs round the boundary line and they fear that they would be bitten, if they crash on to the dogs. It is time that the organisers do something about the dog business.
A good game is on the cards as both teams will be searching for a win to keep them going in the tourney.
The near 500 Lankan supporters who had come from Zambia and Botswana were disappointed with the performance of the cricketers. They were doubly disappointed that the cricketers did not have the courtesy to come out after the game to the enclosure where the Lankan spectators were and greet them. After all they had come a long way and it would have been admirable had the cricketers responded. They had promised to do so and the supporters waited in vain for the cricketers who failed to turn up.