Sri Lanka and South Africa will lock horns in the first match of Group B in ICC Champions Trophy on Saturday (June 3rd).
South Africa rounded off their recent series against England with a seven-wicket win at Lord’s on Monday, having ensured all the members of their Champions Trophy squad featured at some stage. Whereas, Srilanka is going to miss the services of their captain Angelo Mathews because of an injury.
Before Sri Lanka starts their campaign against the world no 1 team, Kumar Sangakkara speaks his heart out on what he feels about his side.
“South Africa arrived in England with high hopes of a successful ICC Champions Trophy campaign, buoyed by a strong showing in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, its last 50-over ICC event outing, and by the fact, its team boasts prodigious talent in all departments”
He also added on the fact that Sri Lanka is mere underdogs in the ongoing tournament.
“Sri Lanka, meanwhile, arrived in England as clear underdogs: richly talented, but youthful and inexperienced. Promisingly for it, however, it has begun in its batting to show the form and runs that are needed to progress in major tournaments.Sri Lanka has managed to put the early-tour shock loss to Scotland behind it and its batting has progressed leaps and bounds. Yes, it ultimately suffered narrow defeats to Australia and New Zealand in the warm-up matches, but I think the team management will have been more concerned about the performance than the result.”
Sangakkara too feels that Quinton de Kock and Kagiso Rabada are the rising stars of the game for Proteas and are their key players.
“In Kock, it has a brilliant opener who has time and again provided the Proteas not just with brisk starts but also innings of substance that have won the team games. With his solid ability behind the stumps, he is the find of recent times for me for South Africa. With the likes of Hashim Amla, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and David Miller filling up the rest of the top order, the Sri Lanka bowlers are faced with a daunting task ahead of themselves.
Matching their batting might are the South Africa bowlers with Kagiso Rabada being the stand-out performer. He is a real handful with the ability to bowl close to 150mph with the expertise to exploit any advantage in overhead conditions in England. He also has a devilishly quick bouncer and a very dangerous Yorker. He’s the spearhead of a very varied and able set of bowlers who are one of the strongest attacks in the tournament.”
“The greatest strength though of this Sri Lanka team is its batting. This is where it is going to win games and this is why it will have been pleased to see it adapting well to conditions thus far.In English conditions with two new balls being used, a lot of responsibility rests on the shoulders of the openers. It is critical that they are able to counteract the early movement and swing with both defence and attack. When the top order is able to provide a solid base, with one of the top four batsmen batting deep into the innings, Sri Lanka is a powerful batting threat.”
According to the former captain the new batting talents in terms of players like Niroshan Dickwella and Kusal Mendis, both of who have great futures ahead of them, he also wants Upul Tharanga to come up well.
“Although on form, South Africa is the stronger team and is expected by the pundits to beat Sri Lanka quite comfortably, this is a Champions Trophy event and I know the Sri Lanka players love a challenge. They come into the tournament with far less pressure, which could be helpful. With their recent batting form and their ability to rise to the occasion of these events, playing a brand of expressive and explosive cricket, they will be believing they can pull off an early upset”