I still have faith in our youngsters: Dilshan

ABU DHABI — This has been the worst of times for this Sri Lankan team, who are on rebuilding mode. But embattled captain Tillakaratne Dilshan said they will work on the areas which they lack before heading to South Africa.

By James Jose

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Published: Sun 27 Nov 2011, 12:17 AM

Last updated: Mon 6 Apr 2015, 6:35 PM

Sri Lanka struggled on the month-long tour against Pakistan in the UAE in the Bank Alfalah presents Mobilink Jazz Cup. They lost the three-match Test series 0-1 and the five-match One-Day International series 1-4. And on Friday night, at the Shaikh Zayed International Cricket Stadium, it ended with a loss in the one-off Twenty20 International. But Dilshan had faith in his young team.

“It is disappointing to lose the series. We wil discuss a lot of things before going to South Afrifca. My youngsters can do the job for us. Taking the captaincy with youngsters is not easy and I believe they can do the job in another six months. They are the one who can do the job,” said Dilshan.

And he said they weren’t too far away from winning and winning one or two matches will bring them back.

“I still believe we are not far away before we get back to winning. As a captain, I have a lot of confidence in my players and we have a few areas which we can correct before going to South Africa. If we win one or two matches, we are back on track,” he said.

Sri Lanka’s next tour is against South Africa. Asked if he had enough support from the senior players in the team, he replied in the affirmative. “They are giving full support for me and I believe we can do good job,” Dilshan said.

About the just-concluded series, Dilshan said: “As a team, we are very disappointed. But throughout the series, we didn’t do that bad. I can say in every Test, the ODIs and the Twenty20, we were close. There are a few areas we need to work on and captialise on. We started well in some matches and at some stages, we were really looking good. And in the Twenty20, we had a great start but we did not captialise from there.”

He said that they were unable to finish off games after getting good starts. “In the last five overs, we lost wickets and we did not captialise. I’m trying to play my own game and maximise on the powerplay. Unfortunately, I got out. We are disappointed losing the Twenty20 after getting a good start. Again, we did not finish it and we lost it. I’m happy with the performance but we are not finishing off games and and throwing our wickets away,” he said.

james@khaleejtimes.com


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