From rxpgnews.com
Jayawardene pleased with Sri Lanka's form
By IANS,
Apr 20, 2007 - 4:37:11 PM
St George's -, April 20 - Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene has said the crushing eight-wicket win over Ireland was the ideal way to prepare for their World Cup semi-final next week.
Playing in their final second-round match, Sri Lanka bundled out Ireland for 77 and raced to 81 for two wickets in just 10 overs to complete the win in three hours at the National Stadium here Thursday.
'We've played enough competitive games, we've played eight-nine games now in a month and we have been playing some really good cricket,' Jayawardene said.
'It was a good performance today for us, making sure that we put our foot down and play really good cricket.'
Jayawardene said that Sri Lanka played 'good cricket' to win the game, reported Caribbean Media Corp.
'Ireland has been a really good side, they have performed really good against a lot of the sides in the tournament. They had a brilliant World Cup and we knew we had to make sure we played some really good cricket to do that win and we managed to really put them down today,' he said.
'I'm not taking anything away from my boys today, they played really good cricket so this win coming before the semi-finals was a boost.'
If the standings remain as they are after Australia's match against New Zealand Friday, it would mean that Sri Lanka would head to Jamaica to do battle with New Zealand in the first semi-final at Sabina Park Tuesday.
Looking ahead to the possibility, Jayawardene said despite not having played in Jamaica throughout the tournament he was confident his team would adjust to whatever conditions they found.
'We are not bothered about the conditions. We just need to go to Jamaica, have a look at it and we'll make sure we adjust to it pitch, that's what we've done this whole World Cup,' Jayawardene pointed out.
'Like I said from the first game, we needed to adjust to these conditions. Every venue offered us different conditions, in Trinidad for the first round games it was moving around doing a lot, there was bounce there but we adjusted.'
Jayawardene said he was ready for whatever kind of pitch his team would get.
'Guyana and here are probably similar wickets, Antigua offered us something different so everyone has to do that adjust so we are sure we can do the same in Jamaica and have a great game.'
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