Abu Dhabi: Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka won the toss and elected to bowl first against Namibia in the fourth match of the 2021 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium here Monday.
After winning the toss, Shanaka said dew coming later led him to bowling first. “The team is doing good in the last six months, we got a few good series wins and also won some warm-up matches. It is about handling the situations and our guys have been handling them well in the last few months. I have been playing a long time now and I am happy to captain.”
Namibia skipper Gerhard Erasmus said, “I think from the last game we saw the pitch getting slow, so not too worried about that. Hopefully we can set up a total and put them under pressure. When you have runs on the board, you can put the ball in their half. It is the pinnacle of many players around here and it has been a long time for us on the world stage, this group is very excited to show their worth here and hopefully we can do that in these three games.”
Playing XIs:
Sri Lanka: Kusal Perera (wicketkeeper), Pathum Nissanka, Dinesh Chandimal, Avishka Fernando, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka (captain), Chamika Karunaratne, Wanindu Hasaranga, Dushmantha Chameera, Maheesh Theekshana and Lahiru Kumara
Namibia: Stephan Baard, Zane Green (wicketkeeper), Craig Williams, Gerhard Erasmus (captain), David Wiese, JJ Smit, Pikky Ya France, Jan Frylinck, Jan Nicol Loftie-Eaton, Ruben Trumpelmann and Bernard Scholtz