Dinesh Chandimal expects easy route to semi-finals

Dinesh Chandimal (L) with Rangana Herath

Bullish about Sri Lanka’s chances of qualifying to the semi-finals of the World Cup T20 in Bangladesh, their captain Dinesh Chandimal has said the fact that Sri Lanka are placed in a group with teams that don’t play spinners well will come to their rescue.

“The way our spinners bowled in the Asia Cup and [the fact that] the pitches will assist them [means] we have a good chance in the tournament,” Chandimal said ahead of his side’s opening game against South Africa. “We are in a group with teams that are not comfortable at playing spin, so we have a good chance. However, we will take it match by match.”

“Our main focus is to get to the semi-finals. From there onwards we will have to plan our strategies differently.”

With the likes of Ajanta Mendis, Rangana Herath and Sachithra Senanayake in their armoury, the Island nation have the right mix of mystery, variety and accuracy when it comes to spin bowling.

Asked about the team’s approach in the just concluded warm-up games, Chandimal said: “We decided to bat first in the first [warm-up] game and in the second we decided to bowl first. We also tried out a different batting line-up and sent Seekkuge Prasanna up the order. We’ll have to pick our batting order. We’ve got Kusal [Perera], Dilshan and [Lahiru] Thirimanne, they are in good form but first we have to see the conditions and the pitch. We have still not planned anything about our batting order.”