Sri Lanka eye Asia Cup

Kumar Sangakkara’s Sri Lanka go into Thursday’s Asia Cup one-day final against India confident of securing a hat-trick of titles.

Sri Lanka, who won the last two editions of the region’s top one-day prize, in 2006 and 2008, are buoyant after thrashing India by seven wickets in a league match on Tuesday.

The prospect of winning a major one-day title in front of passionate home fans excited Sangakkara.

“A final is a final,” Sangakkara told reporters on Wednesday. “Winning an Asia Cup especially at home would be a special thing.

“It’s going to really inspire us and we are going to hit the ground running and really try and win it.”

Sri Lanka and India qualified for the final after defeating Pakistan and Bangladesh, Asia’s other two Test nations, in the preliminary league.

Sangakkara said Tuesday’s win over India — which came without star bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan, Lasith Malinga and Nuwan Kulasekera, who were all rested — boosted his team’s morale.

“We are up for the challenge,” he said. “We feel good about the final.”

Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni said his team was not under pressure after that defeat, but hoped for more consistency from the bowlers to ease pressure on the batsmen. “As a cricketer you see it as just another game,” Dhoni said. “There is no point thinking of it as a final. We are playing against Sri Lanka, that’s it.

“I think the bowlers have done decently for us in patches. But it will be really good to win a few games where you put 240 or 260 on the board and win.

“You can’t all the time expect your batsmen to score 280 or more and make you win the game. “It will be good if we can do that. But then again our strength has been batting. We are a side that relies more on our batting than our bowling.”

India will miss aggressive opener Virender Sehwag, who was ruled out of Tuesday’s match and the final due to a hamstring injury sustained against Pakistan last week. DAMBULLA,

AFP