Pull up your socks and perform - Mendis tells Lankan batsmen (19 May 1999)

19 May 1999

Pull up your socks and perform - Mendis tells Lankan batsmen

Sa'adi Thawfeeq

Northampton, Tuesday - Sri Lanka's batsmen have been asked to pull up their socks and perform or face the consequence of being eliminated from the 1999 World Cup tournament by manager Duleep Mendis. The world champs take on the bookmakers' favourites South Africa in a must-win Group match at the county grounds here tomorrow to be in with a chance for qualifying for the Super Six.

Sri Lanka lost their opening match of the tournament by eight wickets to host England at Lord's last Friday and their batting came up for a scathing attack from manager Mendis.

"When you can't get runs you cannot win matches. If you can't bat then you will have to forget about cricket. Its absurd, you can't expect the bowlers to bat and likewise you can't expect the batsmen to bowl, " said Mendis.

"The conditions weren't that good for batting, but to that we contributed with some rash shots," he said.

Mendis was referring to the poor strokes made by Roshan Mahanama and Marvan Atapattu. Sri Lanka made only 204 after being put into bat, but 49 of those runs came from the tail. England knocked off the runs losing just two wickets.

Sri Lanka are still without a point in the tournament with India and Kenya, while England, South Africa and Zimbabwe have two points apiece.

"At 65 for 5 the game was as good as lost. To add to that we didn't bowl and we didn't attack. We can't go and bat for them. We can do everything that is possible and set the stage. They will have to go out and bat," said Mendis.

"Our biggest problem right now, starting from Australia is the batting. We have not putting enough runs on the board for the bowlers to bowl at. Everyone knows that our bowling is insufficient. It is upto the batsmen to score runs," he said.

Mendis said the team had practiced enough and "it is only a matter of adjusting your mind to the game".

Sri Lanka are likely to make a couple of changes to their line-up. Young Mahela Jayawardene, although he is not batting at his best, is likely to replace Hashan Tillekeratne at no. 7. Sri Lanka are also contemplating playing leg-spinner Upul Chandana to partner Muthiah Muralitharan, knowing the only flaw in South Africa's formidable line-up is spin.

However Chandana's inclusion will totally depend on the conditions here. It has been extremely cold over the past few days and that kind of weather is not going to help the spinners who may experience difficulty in gripping the ball.

It will be hard on Tillekeratne if he finds himself on the sidelines after just one game. But as Mendis says, "You can't give a batsman too many chances in a tournament like this".

Sri Lanka will persist with Mahanama to open the batting with Sanath Jayasuriya and Mendis who has been having a pow-wow with his players every day, said he expected a big score from his frontline batsmen.

The same view was shared by cricket manager Somachandra de Silva who said: "We have been asking one of the batsmen to bat throughout the innings which means someone will have to get a big hundred. The game against South Africa is very important. If we win it means that we have batted well because our bowling is not very penetrative. But first of all we will have to get into the winning streak which has not been there since the Pepsi tournament in India".

"South Africa have a very strong bowling line-up and we are aware of that. Our batting is good enough to take on such an attack," said de Silva.

Sri Lanka captain Arjuna Ranatunga said : "We've got to pick ourselves up and get back to playing proper cricket".

"South Africa are playing very well at the moment. They're a professional side, but we have beaten them in the past so hopefully, we can do so again. It all depends on what happens on the day. That's what one-day cricket is all about," said Ranatunga.

South African captain Hansie Cronje said he planned to attack Sri Lanka's batsmen to put them under pressure from the start.

"If you can't get them under pressure it is a different story. We've seen Brett Schultz demonstrate a couple of years ago that the best way of getting Sri Lanka under pressure is to attack them," said Cronje.

"We've got to cash in while the going is good. We've got be as aggressive as we can and we've got to pressure them from the word 'go'," he said.

Referring to off-spinner Muralitharan, Cronje said: "He's troubled us a lot in the past. We've got to be confident of countering him which means we can't afford to lose too many wickets up front".

One thing Sri Lanka can take to the match tomorrow is that their last win over South Africa was in England last year when they beat them by 57 runs in an Emirates trophy match played at Trent Bridge. South Africa hold an lead 8-6 lead with one no-result in the one-day matches played between the two countries so far.

SRI LANKA (from): Arjuna Ranatunga (captain), Sanath Jayasuriya, Roshan Mahanama, Marvan Atapattu, Aravinda de Silva, Romesh Kaluwitharana, Mahela Jayawardene, Chaminda Vaas, Pramodya Wickremasinghe, Muthiah Muralitharan, Erik Upashantha, Upul Chandana, Hashan Tillekeratne.

SOUTH AFRICA (from) : Hansie Cronje (captain), Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Mark Boucher, Darryl Cullinan, Jacques Kallis, Jonty Rhodes, Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock, Allan Donald, Nicky Boje, Derek Crookes.

UMPIRES: Steve Dunne (New Zealand) and Steve Bucknor (West Indies), TV umpire: Ken Palmer (England) Match Referee: John Reid.

Source :: The Daily News (https://www.lanka.net/lakehouse/)