Champion sides are not made in one day,one year or one season and it s a long process and building players is more important. After 2015 Sri Lanka haven’t nurtured players said ICC Brand Ambassador and Sri Lanka spin legend Muttiah Muralitharan in Pune before the Afghanistan game.
He further said we just make sure if somebody does fail he goes out from the team .One example is ,Avishka Fernando the opener who got two hundreds and he is not in this world cup squad and we did not continue with him .He has talent and we should play him. When Mahela Jayawardena in 2003 World Cup got only 15-20 runs .Did we drop him. No after that he became a legend. We have to give players more chances and back them said Murali.
Kalu and Sanath started in 1988/89 they got established only in 1996/97 and for seven years Arjuna Ranatunga kept them in the side.So we have to nurture players Arjuna had patience at that time . We have gone backwards and we just want to win tournaments and change players and confidence of the players goes down. If a new player comes he has pressure to perform. Players try hard but end of the day others also have to give them a good back up and then they will become confident players added Murali. That’s what we lack and that’s why we are inconsistent. We won 2022 Asia Cup, We reached t last Asia Cup final so our talent is there but players have to perform.
Dunith Wellalage is a good prospect. He just started. His talent was spotted by selectors. Because of Hasaranga’s injury Wellalage got that chance. He was taken because he has done really well at Asia Cup He is doing well on flat wickets .This world cup giving lot of experience for him. He is going to be a future top cricketer and that’s what we all expect.
He should not be dropped if he fails in a match or two and shouldl try him more and we can see him emerging as a talented spinner said former off spinner Muttaih Muralitharan.
Any big team can flop on the day The game is bigger than individuals and the game will change. We can’t win every match and lose every match.
Sri Lanka we can’t say they have inexperienced bowlers they are good bowlers unfortunately the leading bowlers are injured But other bowlers can do the job. I think Sri Lanka started slow but they made mistakes .They beat England and Netherlands also lost to Sri Lanka and Murali said (before Afghanistan game) it’s going to be tough game .But more important we have to take one game at a time. But other teams are more strong. Australia,New Zealand,South Africa and India.
Today off spinners are very few like Nathan Lyan, Ravichandran Ashwin but more talented leg spinners available today. But if we want to produce good bowlers we must give more chances for that player to improve his skills .
I think all team’s spinners are doing well and spinners to well in the latter part of the match because wicket is first very fresh and ICC wanted to maintain standard of wickets in every match The Indian wickets are wonderful and this tournaments has seen 300 ,400 totals and may be the character of wicket something like Chennai , Delhi and some wickets are slow. We can’t change that character. So not even low score something like 250,280 but the thing is spinners will come back to take wickets and knock out stage is very important said Murali with his experience.
We saw some matches but that was not one sided affair.Sometimes teams take advantage of the first half and try to win that games. Most of the games very interesting and we saw Pakistan and Sri Lanka game as well as Australia and New Zealand game that was not an easy. Even Sri Lanka South Africa game We saw South Africa reached 428 and Sri Lanka at one stage were in a position to chase that huge total. These are wonderful matches and people are enjoying really well added Murali.
Afghanistan has good team and good pacemen four good spinners Rashid, Mujeeb and Noor Ahamed and fast bowler like Farooqi who have got chance to play IPL and batting line of Afghanistan also very strong and they play very attacking cricket at the moment said Murali. They have good chance to enter semis.
Always my favourite team is Sri Lanka more than other countries but I had few teams and that is prediction only by me. India looks promising and they played six matches and won all matches and they will qualify with highest run rate to semi finals and the team is very settled and they have better chance to win compared to other teams said Murali.
Dhammika Ratnaweera reporting from India