The Sri Lankan head coach Mickey Arthur has praised the India and Australia national cricket teams as he has claimed that both these teams are currently flagbearers in world cricket.
Sri Lankan team is currently touring in India for the three-match T20I series. After the first two games of this series, India are leading it 1-0. The first T20I of this series at Guwahati (5th January) had no result as the rain interruption and mistakes from the groundstaff cost that game where ultimately zero balls were delivered.
In the second T20I at Indore on 7th January, the hosts restricted the visitors to 142/9 (20 overs) in the first innings after winning the toss. In reply, India successfully chased down that target in 17.3 overs after losing three wickets where the opener KL Rahul scored the highest runs – 45 runs.
Mickey Arthur praised the present Indian team who have developed themselves as a dominating side in the world cricket. He lauded how the Indian youngsters are growing up in cricket. Arthur also praised the present Australian team and claimed that India and Australia are the flagbearers in present world cricket.
Arthur told PTI, “It has been interesting watching them introduce young players and giving them responsibility at critical times, that has been so good. And seeing those young players respond has been amazing. I think India in cricket is in really, really good shape at the moment.
“You look at someone like KL Rahul he hit some shots that were absolutely amazing. India along with probably Australia now I think Australia have found their mojo again are certainly the flagbearers in world cricket.”
India are a great cricket team and there are no apparent weaknesses – Mickey Arthur
While the present Indian team is performing consistently in Test and ODI formats, they are not maintaining the same consistency in the T20I format. However, Mickey Arthur doesn’t feel worried about this.
He added, “They are a great cricket team and there are no apparent weaknesses.”
Talking about their defeat in the Indore T20I, Mickey Arthur has pointed out their low total. He also added that the left-arm pacer Isuru Udana’s unfortunate injury made their life more difficult in that game.
Arthur said, “We did not get enough runs. We lost one of our bowlers (Isuru Udana) unfortunately in the warm-up, but I think we were about 20-25 runs short of putting India under some pressure. We had a couple of our batsmen getting starts, but starts are not good enough. Somebody needs to get a 60-70 or 80 for us, and that is going to be the journey for us.”
Mickey Arthur further pointed out 49 dot balls during Sri Lankan innings. He believes that the inexperienced Sri Lankan batting needs some time to gain confidence.