The Kumar Sangakkara saga not only took the center stage of Sri Lanka cricket for the last couple of weeks but also stunned the cricket world. What shocked them was when the great man opted to dump a huge sum of money and play for his country’s team. Now his decision has actually made the Kandurata Maroons a far stronger team than the other Sri Lankan teams, which took part in the Champions League and came home like morons for the last few years. The Kandy team would rest their hopes on their batting to be built around the key man Sangakkara. Upul Tharanga along with Thilina Kandamby are likely to open the batting which will keep the youngster Shehan Jayasuriya’s place in the team under scrutiny. However, there should definitely be a battle between the three spinning all-rounders, Shehan, Milinda Siriwardena and Kaushal Lokuarachchi for their places in the squad. Lokuarachchi is a tailor-made T20 cricketer and has been around for while. His contribution certainly would be required by the young captain Thirimanne. Few would argue Shehan taking the place of Kandamby and opening the batting but in such a competitive tournament like Champions League you’d want the experience at top of the order. Shehan is still a young bloke and a very aggressive batsman, plays cricket with a smile on his face most of the time. But for Kandurata, the best option would be to have him down the order or just keep him on the bench and make sure they don’t kill his confidence because this kid averages 50.33 with the bat and 29.20 with the ball in first class cricket, but this is a different format. Nuwan Kulasekara, the vice captain of the team would spearhead the Kandurata bowling attack. Like Lokuarachchi there’s another ‘Loku’ bloke who is well suited for the shortest format of cricket; he’s Dilhara Lokuhettige who swings the new ball. The biggest advantage this team has, in addition to the two medium pacemen they have a well experienced quickie who clocks 140 regularly in Dhammika Prasad. Although the Maroons have plenty of part-time spin bowling options, they would heavily depend on Ajantha Mendis’ mystery. He is a world class bowler and people calling him ‘weak’ against the subcontinent teams is just a myth. When he gets it right no matter whether it’s Chennai Super Kings or Brisbane Heat he will destroy many a batting order. Kandurata will face Sunrisers Hyderabad on the opening day of the Champions League (17th) at Mohali which is known as a seamer-friendly track. Kandurata may not actually mind playing on that since they have two good swing bowlers and the fact Sangakkara having played IPL cricket there for three seasons. They are a much better team than most people believe them to be and have the potential to go all the way. Kandurata Maroons Team for CLT20 - 2013: 1. Lahiru Thirimanne (Capt) 2. Nuwan Kulasekara (V.Capt) 3. Upul Tharanga 4. Thilina Kandamby 5. Kumar Sangakkara 6. Shehan Jayasuriya 7. Chamara Silva 8. Milinda Siriwardena 9. Dilhara Lokuhettige 10. Dhammika Prasad 11. Ajantha Mendis 12. Kaushal Lokuarachchi 13. Lahiru Jayaratne 14. Dhananjaya De Silva 15. Suraj Randiv
Posted on: Sun, 08 Sep 2013 05:56:21 +0000
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