Dubai: Sri Lankan coach Nic Pothas feels that no player in his One-day squad can take his place for granted.

Losing the first One-dayer to Pakistan by 83 runs at the Dubai International stadium on Friday, Pothas said: “We know how we want to go about putting 50 overs together. We need to give these guys a certain period of time. (Kusal) Mendis is a very good player of spin and rotates strike very well.

“Lahiru Thirimane and Dinesh Chandimal are the guys who can play those long innings in ODI cricket for you. At the moment we are thinking somewhere on those lines. We are in communication with selectors. No one has nailed down a spot. With the World Cup coming soon, every position is up for grabs.”

Elaborating on his team’s batting in the first match, Pothas said; “From a batting point of view, the currency of your batting is runs. If you don’t keep making them, the shop is going to close down at some point. We have to ask the batters to take some responsibility. The top six batters managed 96 between them and that’s not good enough.”

Pothas feels that Pakistan has found the winning formula and his team too should find it. “Confidence is a big thing. When you lose two of the legends it’s a massive thing but on the flip side Pakistan have got very experienced players. They have won the Champions Trophy and they are flying high. They have got a good formula and we are trying to find our formula. We have not been very good in this format for a while now. We have to find answers and find them quick,” he said.

Pothas then went on to hail Pakistan’s young Babar Azam. “I am very pleased with his attitude. He had a very tough Test series and to come back from that and play like he did and showed that he is quite a strong, young player. It has to be said that we dropped him on 40 and without a referral he was out on 50. In the Test series, we had lot of rub of the green. Here because we are not winning lot of games, the luck seems to be going against you. He played really well and that allowed Shoaib Malek to play his innings. He was allowed to play that way because of the maturity of a very good young batter.”

It was Sri Lanka’s tail that wagged in the end against Pakistan. Commenting on Akila Dananjaya’s fighting unbeaten half century, Pothas said: “We have a system within the team where we want the bowlers to get us those small runs. Akila is a champion. He is a fighter and he is a character. It was only a matter of time before he played a knock like that. He is only going to get better. Jeffrey Vandersay is the same. It is pleasing but I would like to see them bat less, to be honest.”