Hard work ahead, Mahela warns

Chris Dhambarage

Former captain Mahela Jayawardena warned his teammates that there is hard work ahead after scoring a sparkling century in Sri Lanka’s opening group ‘A’ match against Canada at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium on Sunday.

The dashing right hander hit a 81 ball century to help Sri Lanka pile up a massive 332 for 7 from their 50 overs after having won the toss and elected to bat first. Jayawardena’s innings was his second in a World Cup and the fourth fastest in the World Cup history.

Sri Lanka went on to win the match by a huge margin of 210 runs which was also their second largest in World Cup and the fourth biggest victory in One Day Internationals.

However Jayawardena stated that their real test of character in the 14 nation mega event will begin when they confront Pakistan in the second group ‘A’ match to be worked off on Saturday at the R. Premadasa International Stadium.

“We had a few nerves before the game against Canada started, just to get on with the World Cup in front of our own crowd. The first game in a tournament is always important and it’s not easy to play a team like Canada.

You’ve got to make sure that you come in prepared It is a good start to the tournament and a lot of hard work ahead of us with other teams. Now we look forward to our next match against Pakistan.

Pakistan have got some great individual players and we play them quite often and we know how dangerous they can be, so we have to do our homework right and prepare ourselves and go in with a very positive mindset,” Jayawardene added

The 33 year old who scored his 13th one day international hundred said that he was pleased to have scored Sri Lanka’s fastest century in a World Cup tournament. Jayawardena also stated that their main strike bowler Lasith Malinga will be available for the game against Pakistan after having rested for the opening match against Canada.

“We didn’t want to risk him, he bowled yesterday and he was okay but given the fact that we have got couple of crucial games coming up, we thought that he should get a break. I think he should be okay for the Pakistan game,” he said.

Canada skipper Asish Bagai said that they were always going to be up against it after Sri Lanka’s massive total.

“It was always going to be a tough task. But I thought we bowled well in the first 26 overs where we managed to keep them under five runs an over. And then two world class players took the game away from us. So 333 was always going to be a tough ask.”