The Sri Lankan captain Kusal Mendis spoke on Mathews’ dismissal due to time out after the match against Bangladesh in the World Cup 2023.
Kusal Mendis on the defeat against Bangladesh
Bangladesh is scheduled to play in the 38th World Cup match against Sri Lanka on November 06, at Arun Jaitley Stadium. During the match, Bangladesh skipper Shakib Al Hasan had an impressive knock of 82 runs and was named the Player of the Match.
Winning the toss, Bangladesh chose to bowl where Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Perera opened for Sri Lanka while Shoriful Islam opened the bowling attack. Islam dismissed Kusal Perera for four runs in the first over of the innings.
Pathum Nissanka scored 41 runs on 36 deliveries while Shakib dismissed Kusal Mendis for 19 runs. With the dismissal of Pathum Nissanka Sri Lanka was down to the last seven wickets. Samarawickrama helped the side by scoring 41 runs and was dismissed by Shakib.
Asalanka had an impressive knock of 108 runs and was sent out by Tanzim Hasan Sakib. The dismissal of the Sri Lankan all-rounder Angelo Mathews due to time out made a controversy. Dhananjaya de Silva scored 34 runs and was sent out by Mehidy Hasan while Shoriful Islam dismissed Theekshana for 22 runs.
With Chameera’s 4 runs, Rajitha was sent out with a duck. Shoriful Islam dismissed two wickets while Tanzim Hasan Sakib dismissed three wickets. Sri Lanka scored 279 runs in the last over of their innings losing all 10 wickets.
With a target of 280, Tanzid Hasan and Litton Das opened the innings while Dilshan Madushanka opened the bowling attack. Tanzid Hasan was sent out for 9 runs while Litton Das scored 23 runs and was dismissed by Dilshan Madushanka.
Najmul Hossain Shanto and Shakib Al Hasan were impressive during the match as they scored 90 and 82 runs respectively before being dismissed by Mathews. Mahmudullah scored 22 runs while Rahim and Towhid scored 10 and 15 runs. By the end, Bangladesh scored 282 runs on the 1st ball of the 42nd over. They won the match with 3 wickets in hand.
While speaking on post-match interview, Kusal Mendis said, “Charith played a brilliant innings. But I feel we fell 30-40 runs short. 320 would have been a good total on this surface. I’m happy that Pathum, Dilshan, and Sadeera have done well. We have shown some promise in the tournament. In the future, we will have a good team to show promise.”
“When we were coming in, there were a couple of injuries to our main players. So we had to change the combinations. We made some mistakes early in the tournament and we would have done better in all departments,” he said.
“It’s very disappointing. When Angelo came into bat, there were 5 seconds left on the clock. He realized that the strap of his helmet was broken. I feel that the umpires should have stepped up. It was common sense and it’s disappointing that the umpires didn’t make the right decision at that point of time,” Mendis Concluded.
Sri Lanka will be playing their next and last group stage match against New Zealand on November 11 at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
