Hobart: As Scotland take on Sri Lanka in Hobart on Wednesday, only two issues remain pertinent. Will Scotland be able to stop Kumar Sangakkara from hitting another century and will their batsmen be able to cope with the fearsome pacer Lasith Malinga?
With Sri Lanka peaking at the right time and Scotland’s inexperience as an associate country being exposed, the result looks a foregone conclusion. Sri Lanka’s margin of victory will reveal whether Scotland could put up a fight or not.
Scotland skipper Preston Mommsen accepts that the match is nothing but a great opportunity to play a full member nation. He candidly accepts that “results-wise it’s not been the most perfect World Cup for us.”
Though Mommsen knows that it is hard to beat Sri Lanka, Marvan Atapattu, the coach of the Sri Lankan team says: “You’ve got to guard against complacency and just play our best cricket. You’ve still got to respect your opponent, respect the good bowlers that come along. We have to play our best cricket on the day. Upsets still can happen.”
Scotland have prepared for Malinga’s sizzling yorkers with guidance from former England captain Paul Collingwood. “We’ve got Paul Collingwood with us who has played a lot of cricket against him [Malinga]. A few of our guys have also played against him. Sri Lanka toured the UK two years ago, and they played us at The Grange in Edinburgh, and we played them there. But ‘Collie’ [Collingwood] has a very good kind of worked action in the nets that he is able to kind of throw as Malinga bowls. So that’s kind of the way we’ve simulated his action. Obviously, it’s something that’s different and something that we’ve done some fair preparation on, we are expecting to take our time against him. He was, I think pretty devastating against us in Edinburgh, and we can’t let that happen again,” Mommsen said.
Expanding on their plans to stop Sangakkara, he said: Sri Lanka’s top four are quality batsmen. We know we’ve still got to play our own brand of cricket and that means, as a bowling unit, we have to come together and earn the right to take wickets. At the end of the day, we have to take wickets and try to negate the effect that those sort of players have. Once they get in, they make it count. So for us, we need to be as attacking as possible.”
When Atapattu was asked about Malinga’s impact, he said: “He’s been brilliant in the last game especially. There are big game players and he’s one of those. He stands up and he has a big game; pressure situations he comes up trumps. He is a great asset to the team and the bowling.”
Atappatu revealed that Dinesh Chandimal, who hit 52 against Australia, has been ruled out of the World Cup due to a hamstring injury. Chandimal is the fifth Sri Lankan player to be hit by injuries after Dhammika Prasad, Dimuth Karunaratne, Jeevan Mendis and Rangana Herath.
