da bwin： Russel Arnold, Sri Lanka A’s current captain, believes his young side ofhopefuls, who have started a super-intensive programme of A team tours, arequickly learning and growing in self-belief
Wisden Cricinfo Staff07-Jan-2004Russel Arnold, Sri Lanka A’s current captain, believes his young side ofhopefuls, who have started a super-intensive programme of A team tours, arequickly learning and growing in self-belief.© AFPSri Lanka played impressively to win the recent Kenstar triangulartournament in Kolkata over the festive season, beating the hosts India inthe final.The team’s performance was not as consistent as they would have liked –they won their first two games easily, twice chasing over 300, but then lostboth their second round matches — but they performed when it mattered most."Our bowlers were not up to the mark in those two games but we batted verywell to chase 300 and win,” recalled Arnold, who is now pushing hard for areturn to the national team.”But in the next two matches our batting let us down. It’s hard to tell whyit happened. Maybe it was due to the slowness of the pitch, a little bit ofover confidence on our part or the Indian and Pakistani bowlers had learnttheir lessons from the previous games and bowled to a line.”"The loss to Pakistan almost shattered us. We had to depend on the outcomeof the last qualifying match between India and Pakistan to know whether wehad got into the final. When we actually qualified, we got our act togetherand performed to our potential to beat India in the final," said Arnold."The two losses made us work harder for success. We showed glimpses of whatthe team is capable of achieving under pressure. This performance will haveto back up with consistency. What the last few months have shown is that wehave started to believe that we can do things and compete with any teamunder different situations."We were not as strong as India and Pakistan, who had more establishedplayers in their sides but on that day everyone contributed towards the win.The support given by coach Hemantha Devapriya and manager Nuski Mohamed atall times was encouraging from the team’s point. It helped lift our spiritswhenever we were down," Arnold said.© AFPWith scores of 96 not out, 100 not out, 9, 9 and 35 not out, Arnold easilytopped the tournament batting averages with 249 runs (avg. 124.50). NaveedNawaz (203 runs), Saman Jayantha (186), Shantha Kalavitigoda (148) and JehanMubarak (143) were the other top order batsmen amongst the runs."I am quite happy with my batting form, but I will have to constantly get asmany runs as possible," said the 30-year-old left-hander.Schoolboy Mohamed Maharoof, a budding right-arm medium pacer, topped thebowling averages with nine wickets taken at a cost of 11.77. He excelled inthe last two games to take eight wickets that included four in the final.Rangana Herath, a left-arm spinner who has performed consistently well inrecent tours to South Africa and India, finished with eight wickets.Nuski Mohamed, the manager, believes the new intensive A team programme willreap dividends and help narrow the gap between the senior team and theirreplacements."The whole purpose of each tour is to try and bridge this gap. We’ll have tofind star players who should be available to fill the vacancies at everybeck and call," said Mohamed. "It is less evident in teams like India andPakistan. We should also have a backup team of players ready to fill in thebreach like the Australians. The only way to achieve that is to have moretours of this nature."Sri Lanka A are due to tour New Zealand in March, England in May-June andZimbabwe in October this year.