da wazamba： Sri Lankan captain and player of the series Sanath Jayasuriya said hedidn’t expect India to go down so tamely in the final of the Coca-ColaCup which his side won by 121 runs, “Honestly, I didn’t think we couldwin the game that easily” said
Rex Clementine06-Aug-2001Sri Lankan captain and player of the series Sanath Jayasuriya said hedidn’t expect India to go down so tamely in the final of the Coca-ColaCup which his side won by 121 runs, “Honestly, I didn’t think we couldwin the game that easily” said Jayasuriya.Sri Lanka after an inconsistent performance with the bat in the leaguematches came up with their best performance of the series to clinchthe trophy. The coach of the side, Dav Whatmore feels it’s likereserving the best for the last, “It was like we saving the best forthe last. Probably we played the best cricket of the tournament today”remarked Whatmore.Captain Jayasuriya revealed that things worked for them right from thestart. “The first important thing was that we won the toss. We neededto keep wickets intact in the first few overs that too was achieved.And then we had the feeling that we need lot of runs on the board andthe middle order clicked at the right moment.”However, the Sri Lankan captain missed out on a well deserved centurywhen he spooned a catch to his counterpart Sourav Ganguly at shortmidwicket when he was on 99. Replying to a question on whether he wasdisappointed in missing out on another hundred the Sri Lankan captainsaid, “No not at all. It’s a part of the game. It’s normal. I wasworried that I couldn’t stay till the 40th over. But I tell you I amreally happy.” Sri Lanka having made 295 made early inroads into theIndian innings and the introduction of Muttiah Murilitharan the strikebowler of the Sri Lankan team was delayed until the 23rd over of thematch,”We discussed a few things and one of them was the Murali issue – whenwe should bring him into the attack. He is a classy player, but if webrought him on in the middle overs he could have put up lot ofpressure on the opposition” said the Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore ontheir tactic of holding back Muralitharan till the middle overs.Russel Arnold deserved the Man of the Match award for his all roundperformance in the match. He made 52 in 45 balls and got the wicket ofYuvraj Singh, effected the run out of Virender Shewag and in the verynext ball took a superb catch at backward of point to send back Indiancaptain Sourav Ganguly.Arnold, speaking of his batting performance admitted that the hardwork done early in the innings was crucial, “The earlier batsmen haddone a good job in the middle after we decided to bat first. That mademy task easy. If we hadn’t got off to a good start we would havestruggled in the middle overs. In fact Kalu and I struggled initially.But we had nothing to panic about since we were going along at a goodrun rate” revealed Arnold who collected his second man of the matchaward of the Coca-Cola Cup.