St John’s [Antigua], March 13 (ANI): After suffering a five-wicket loss against West Indies in the second ODI on Friday (local time), Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne said that his side lacked wicket-taking options and failed to put pressure on the opponents.
Evin Lewis and Shai Hope played knocks of 103 and 84 respectively to reach the total of 274 with two balls remaining. Windies got off to a fantastic start as openers Lewis and Hope put on 192 runs for the first wicket and the duo finished the match with this start and the Sri Lanka bowlers had no answers.
“We lost lot of wickets in the early part. We recovered well, but the two batsmen who got runs, they couldn’t convert it. Even the bowling …. we need to improve. The spinners are expected to take wickets, but the WI batsmen batted really well against them. There are some positives,” Karunaratne said after the game.
“Danushka got some runs, Chandimal got some runs as well, Thisara and Wanindu were brilliant. But we lacked wicket-taking options and that’s why we couldn’t put pressure on West Indies. We need to have a plan for their openers (in the final ODI). We need to take a couple of wickets early,” he added.
Sri Lanka did manage to take five wickets, but in the end, Nicholas Pooran (35) and Jason Holder (2) took the hosts over the line with five wickets in the bag.
Earlier, Danushka Gunathilaka played a knock of 96 as Sri Lanka posted a total of 273/8 in the allotted fifty overs. Opting to bat first, the visitors got off to a bad start as the side was reduced to 50/3 in the ninth over.
Dimuth Karunaratne (1), Pathum Nissanka (10), and Oshada Fernando (2) failed to get going with the bat. Dinesh Chandimal (71) then joined Gunathilaka (96) in the middle and the duo formed a 100-run stand to revive the innings but as soon as Sri Lanka started to gain an upper hand, Windies managed to get three wickets with the visitors scoring just 54 more runs and Sri Lanka was reduced to 204/6 in the 42nd over. In the final five overs, Sri Lanka added 51 more runs. For West Indies, Jason Mohammed returned with three wickets. (ANI)