After a horrific start to their campaign at the 2019 ICC World Cup, Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne felt that the middle-order will have to take more responsibility if they are to make something out of their remaining games.
Sri Lanka suffered a humiliating 10-wicket loss to New Zealand in their opening match of World Cup before managing to prevail over Afghanistan by 34 runs in their second outing.
However, the Lankan middle-order failed to score in both the games. "If we make a good start to the innings then we can keep that momentum going. If you take the last couple of games, we couldn't capitalise on the starts we made," Karunaratne was quoted as saying by ICC media.
Sri Lanka were bowled out for just 136 against the Black Caps, and then they crumbled from 144/1 to 201 all out against Afghanistan. "We need those middle order contributions and I think that's the key for us as a batting line-up. Other than that, I think as a group we're doing really good.”
The match between Sri Lanka and Pakistan was called off without a ball being bowled because of persistent rain at the Bristol County Ground on Friday.
The no-result meant the points were shared between the teams, pushing Sri Lanka and Pakistan into third and fourth place, respectively, in the table.
“We all came here to play cricket so it's not good that we didn't get to play. We're really disappointed as a team but we'll look ahead to the next game. We won our last game against Afghanistan and while we may lose some matches along the way during the World Cup, we always give a lot of fight and that's all we want," said the skipper.
Feature image courtesy: AFP Photo/ Ishara S Kodikara
