Thank you Sanga, says Mathews

Former skipper Sangakkara, who is currently playing for Surrey, spent some time with his country’s youngsters before the game against India. Mathews thanked Sangakkara for his tips to Kusal Mendis, who made 89 yesterday, and other young batsmen. 

“Yeah, he (Mendis) met Kumar Sangakkara to get a few batting tips, and he’s the king, and we all look up to him. We all get advice from him, all the batters,” Mathews said. “He taught us a lot of good things on how to play on these tracks. Yesterday the guys met him and took a lot of advice and went out there and implemented it.” 

Incidentally, it was Sri Lanka’s joint highest ODI run chase (322), which also kept alive its hopes of reaching the semi-finals. Danushka Gunathilaka, who replaced an injured Chamara Kapugedera, struck a fine 76 off 72 balls while Mendis made 89 as the duo shared 159 runs for the second wicket to lay the foundation for the run chase. 

“Mind you, to walk into a game knowing that he (Danushka) wasn’t even in the 15 and Kapugedera got injured and he had to step in and to open the batting against a very strong opposition, it was fantastic the way he batted,” Mathews said. 

Sri Lanka might have been rated as underdogs for years now but Mathews is not bothered whether the victory will make its opponents respect it or not. “Well, it doesn’t matter if the opposition respects us or not. We are out to do a job, and we don’t really think about what the opposition thinks (about us),” he said.