Sri Lanka’s newly appointed Test captain Dinesh Chandimal has set his goals for the future and hopes to attain the numero uno status in the longest format of the game but has made it pretty clear that it is impossible to achieve the feat in a solitary year. The Islanders begin their Test leg against African minnows Zimbabwe on Friday.
The Asian giants are currently lagging at the 7th position in the latest ICC Test Rankings after attaining the 2nd position in 2010. They have kept losing matches in the recent past and in the last five encounters they have lost 4. Barring an emphatic 3-0 victory against Australia last year their performance has been pretty lopsided.
“My final goal is to take the team to No. 1 in the world. But we can’t do that in one day or one year. We have to work hard with our cricket to get there. We have young players, and we have to give them experience along the way. We have to take it step by step – go to No. 6 first, then No. 5 and so on. We have a long way to go,” Chandimal told reporters ahead of the only Test against Zimbabwe starting tomorrow.
After a humiliating series loss in the ODI series, Sri Lanka would look keep things easy for the Test and Chandimal feel the experience in their pace attack will surely pose a sterner test in the longest format.
“The Zimbabwe batsmen, in particular, played very well during the five ODIs, and we can’t underestimate them,” Chandimal said. “But we do have Rangana Herath in our Test team, who is an extremely experienced player. We also have Dilruwan Perera. I don’t think we will let Zimbabwe get into a rhythm too easily. We have plans against them, and we have good spinners. So I’m hoping we can bowl well and restrict them.”
Chandimal conceded that fielding will be an area of concern for the Islanders after their Test loss to Bangladesh earlier in the year. “I’ve thought about how we became so weak in fielding and tried to work out how we can fix it. I talked with the coaches as well. Even in training, if we catch 100 flat catches, 100 high catches, and 100 ground fielding balls, the pressure that we have in the game is missing.
“I talked to the coaches and told them that what I want is to do those drills under something similar to match pressure. Then we have a target and feed off each other’s energy. In the last few days, that’s what we did. I think we’ll be able to improve a lot in our fielding with those measures,” he added.
Chandimal also gave an indication that he might purely play as a batsman in the Test against Zimbabwe and Niroshan Dickwella might get his maiden break in the longest format.
“Dickwella is in the form in ODIs and is a young player, and we also have to push him forward as someone who will improve our cricket. He will probably do the job most times. But I will also consider the team’s balance, and am prepared to keep. For this match, he will probably keep,” Chandimal signed off.