PALLEKELE: Kandy-born Chamara Kapugedera whose past experience as captain has been at school, provincial and club level in the domestic sphere has been entrusted with the task of changing his country’s flagging fortunes by leading them in the third and fourth one-day internationals against India.
Kapugedera’s first task is to captain his country to victory in the third ODI at the Pallekele International Stadium today if Sri Lanka is to remain in contention in the five-match series.
India won the first two matches played at Dambulla and at Pallekele and a win today would enable them to seal the series, making the last two contests a dead rubber.
From Sri Lanka’s point they need to win at least two of the remaining three matches to directly qualify for a place in the 2019 Cricket World Cup.
They came pretty close to doing so in the second ODI played here on Thursday only to be thwarted by MS Dhoni and Bhuvneshwar Kumar who turned the game that was going Sri Lanka’s way with an record 100 runs unbroken eighth wicket partnership.
“It is a huge honour for me to captain my country. I am really happy to get this opportunity,” said Kapugedera who becomes Sri Lanka’s 20th ODI captain.
“It’s a challenge for me. Every game is a challenge. I am ready for it. As a team we discussed a lot of things. Whatever we spoke we need to put them into practice.
“After the last game we believe that we can win. We played really well. Especially it was a fine effort by Akila Dananjaya.
One hurdle we have to overcome and things will fall in line,” he said. “We are disappointed to lose. But we need to take all the positives from the last game. We don’t want to take any negatives.
Hopefully the guys will come up and do the job.” Kapugedera denied that Sri Lanka was a struggling team and it needed only a win for things to turn around. “I don’t think we are struggling. There is a good atmosphere in the team.
The way we played we are having lots of confidence. Everyone is together and hopefully we can pull off a win.”
The second match of the series marked Kapugedera’s 100th ODI and he celebrated it by scoring a valuable 40 and sharing a 91-run stand with Milinda Siriwardana to lift Sri Lanka from 121-5 to 236-8.
Kapugedera has three former ODI captains in his side to turn for help on his captaincy debut namely Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal and Lahiru Thirimanne.
Chandimal and Thirimanne return to the one-day side for Upul Tharanga (who has been suspended for two matches for slow overrate) and Danushka Gunathilaka (right shoulder injury).
While Chandimal is expected to bat in Tharanga’s position at four, Thirimanne is likely to open the batting with Niroshan Dickwella.
Kapugedera however stated that it was upto the selection committee to decide on whether Chandimal and Thirimanne would play today.
“We haven’t actually gone through the team or finalized it still looking around for options.
Hard to say now as to who will open or who will play in the middle order,” said Kapugedera.
Sri Lanka’s main strike bowler Lasith Malinga who has failed to fire in the first two matches is still seeking his 300th ODI wicket needing two more to reach the landmark.
NO REGRETS FOR CHANGING BATTING ORDER – KOHLI
Meanwhile, Indian captain Virat Kohli said he had no regrets making a change in the batting that almost derailed India’s run chase on Thursday.
With India cruising at 109-1 in the 16th over Kohli sent Lokesh Rahul to bat at number three and he came at number five.
Suddenly India was reduced to 131-7 in the 22nd over by spinner Akila Dananjaya who took six wickets in a sensational spell.
India were saved by their eighth wicket pair and finally won by three wickets.
"When you're 110 for 1 in a chase of 230, you want to give everyone a chance to bat. I don't have any regrets. If I had come at No.3, I would have still missed that ball because he (Akila Dananjaya) was bowling that well," Kolhi, who was dismissed for just four runs, said.
"It was quite an exciting game of cricket, fans and players must have been entertained.
It is good for us to come through eventually. Two 100-run partnerships in a chase of 230 with seven wickets, that's quite bizarre. This kind of thing does not happen in this game often," he added.
Kohli gave credit to unheralded mystery spinner Dananjaya, who took six for 54 from his 10 overs to wreak havoc in the Indian innings.
"We thought he was an off-spinner with a good leg-break, but he got four wickets off googlies. We'll be more careful next time. Credit to him for pitching the ball in the right areas," he said.