SA vs SL | Believe we can do it and have a good chance of winning, reckons Dimuth Karunaratne

Sri Lanka could be deemed as the unluckiest of sides since cricket resumed post the COVID-19 pandemic. With as much as four players ruled out of the first Test at different junctures during the game, the visitors ended the game with only seven players fit in the lineup against a dominant South African side. 

While the results were mightly stacked against the Lions, their skipper Dimuth Karunaratne believes that the team has it in them to pull off an improbable win in the upcoming second Test. It is evident that the Sri Lankan team will miss three of their key players - Dhananjaya de Silva, Kasun Rajitha and Lahiru Kumara for the second Test, the skipper reckoned it gives an opportunity to youngsters to come out and shine. 

“We don’t have our best XI but we have some very good youngsters who have done well in domestic competition and can make the step up,” Karunaratne told a news conference on SaturdaySaturday, reported HT. 

“I feel the youngsters will do their best. I believe we can do it and we have a good chance to win.”

Looking back at the first Test, the visiting skipper stated that he hasn’t quite experienced the injuries at the biggest stage in this magnitude. While Sri Lanka did post 396 on board in the first innings, the lack of bowling options ultimately resulted in the game tilting towards the hosts, who went on to tire the Sri Lankans on the field with their batting efforts.

“I’ve never faced a situation like this and maybe no one has, where in one match you lose three bowlers,” he added.

“When we started we had a balanced attack, with bowlers I could use for various roles. But in the first innings we lost that. We had been in a position where we could have even dominated the game,” he concluded.