Sri Lanka have lost the art of winning: Chamara Kapugedera

Sri Lanka’s stand-in skipper Chamara Kapugedara sounded dejected post another defeat at the hands of the Indians. The captain didn’t go all soft and said that the Lankans have lost the art of winning and urged his team to take up the responsibility and work on their weakness ahead of the 4th ODI. The hosts could only manage 217/9 with Lahiru Thirimanne scoring the major bit with a 105-ball 80 runs. Indian opener Rohit Sharma’s unbeaten 124* guided India home without any fuss.

Former skipper MS Dhoni too kept his good form going. He remained unbeaten on 67* off 86 balls. Sri Lanka came close to threaten the visitors after India were trailing at 61/4 at one stage but Sharma along with Dhoni didn’t let the Lankans cause any further damage and took the team over the finishing line, with 29 balls to spare.

Winning formula is forgotten

“There are no outside problems. But I think that the winning formula has been forgotten,” Kapugedara told reporters yesterday after India took an unbeatable 3-0 lead with a six-wicket victory in the third ODI. “I have seen that happen to many teams. When a team is losing, even if they get close to win, they just can’t go beyond that hurdle. So we have lost that winning formula. But we’ll have to win just one match and go from there.”

Lankan bowlers were impressive

The skipper backed his bowlers and spoke about the improvement they have shown in the last two ODIs. He also believes that if the batsmen can lift the team up with decent totals, then winning won’t be too far. “We also talk a lot how we get this on track but I think in the last two games, we have bowled well. There was a big improvement of our bowling in the last two games. On the other hand, our batsmen also need to lift their game. If we can go for a fair total, I think we can win,” he concluded.