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Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Caribbean

ST. VINCENT, Kingstown, Tuesday - Interim cricket coach Duleep Mendis said that Sri Lanka's four-wicket victory over West Indies which gave them an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match Cable and Wireless one-day international series at Barbados on Sunday evoked memories of a team that went on to win the World Cup in 1996.

"The signs are almost similar to 1995. It was the same the way the team started to come up. Starting from the tour of Pakistan, we went to Sharjah and chased a huge total. The trend is very similar the way the boys are fighting back again to get into top gear," said Mendis as his team began preparations for the third and final one-day international here tomorrow (Wednesday).

On that occasion in Sharjah the opposition was the West Indies. Sri Lanka chased a West Indies total of 333-7 and lost by four runs. Mendis was manager of the Sri Lanka team when they won the World Cup in 1996. Sri Lanka won back to back one-dayers played at Barbados over the weekend, two matches of different contrasts. The first international was a low scoring affair where Sri Lanka did well to defend their moderate total of 201 and win by 55 runs. The second international played on the same pitch produced a run glut as both teams made over 300 runs. Sri Lanka chasing West Indies' total of 312-4 achieved the target with three balls to spare to win by four wickets.

"All what the boys needed right through in the recent past was some big achievement, either a good victory or a big score where they can say 'we are batting well'. The two wins have given the boys a lot of confidence because West Indies has been playing well recently beating Australia in three succcessive matches. They are on the right path and I hope things will fall into place from now on," said Mendis.

Describing the dramatic win Mendis said: "When we got 201 in the first match what we said in the dressing room was to concentrate on the job at hand and defend the total. We will talk about where we went wrong back in the hotel.

Today, it was just the opposite. They got 312 and once again we told the boys the first priority was to get the runs. What went wrong we will discuss later".

"It was very important for us to get a good start with Sanath and Kalu because without the start at least at the rate of about 6 to 7 runs an over in the first 15 overs there was no chance of chasing the 312. They stuck to the target and fortunately, when it was getting a little slower and when we were losing wickets, we thought of sending Chandana to accelerate the scoring, which he did very successfully. He batted brilliantly.

"Whoever we decided to send up the order, he had to do a job of accelerating the scoring rate to keep the batsmen back for the vital last few overs. What happened today was when Chandana was promoted; he did his job perfectly. As a result, we had enough batsmen to get the runs in the latter stages," said Mendis.

"We told Chandana, that his target was to accelerate the run rate. He started hitting a few boundaries and that upset the West Indies because we were always above the asking run rate. When Chandana started accelerating all the other batsmen fell in line. They had to get about a run a ball or something like 75 percent of what they had to get. It was much easier.

Chandana going up and playing that innings changed the whole complexion of the game," he said. "When he was brought Chandana into the side we told him only one thing. 'You are a good player and that is why we are sending you up the order' and he did the job for us," he said. Mendis said that at no stage during their run chase did Sri Lanka think that they would not reach the target of 313.

"Before the chase began it looked like a huge task in front of the boys.

They were not batting well at all in the last few matches and the score was something like which you would never have achieved. But all that was in the mind. The mind game played a big part starting from yesterday (Saturday)," said Mendis.

"When we started the run chase at no stage was it that we were going to let it go. In a one-day game if you lose by 100 runs or by one run it is still a loss. So you might as well go for it and then lose. Sometimes in these types of games you lose by big margins because you go for it," he said.

Sri Lanka one-day captain Marvan Atapattu said that he did not believe in crushing the opposition and robbing West Indies of any morale ahead of the Test series by making a clean sweep of the one-day series.

"Everytime I walk out as captain I go all out to win the game. The same goes with the rest of the team. I wouldn't say crushing and stuff like that because down the line you may get the same treatment. We just walk into a game thinking that we are going to win it," said Atapattu who will be aiming for a 3-0 rout of the West Indies, a result which would bring him immense satisfaction following two reversals in Sharjah and in Dambulla where Sri Lanka failed to make the final on each occasion.

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