Be it the cricket fans or experts, hardly anyone before the start of the Asia Cup 2022 gave Sri Lanka a chance to win the trophy. After their defeat in the hands of Afghanistan in the first match of the tournament, the Lankan team was pushed even further. Since then, Dasun Shanaka and his group of enthusiastic lads went on to win five matches in a row including the final in Dubai. Batting first, the Lankans posted 170 runs on board which the Pakistan team failed to match as they lost by 23 runs and with that, Sri Lanka won their sixth Asia Cup title in history.
Deep Dasgupta, former India international, believes that the team has done everything in their power to call themselves the champions. In their entire journey, the Lankan boys went on to defeat Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan twice. Their bowling line-up which was criticised previously showed maturity in the night of the finals which eventually helped the team lift the cup. The 45-year-old also believes that Sri Lanka’s thought process behind their success is something that deserves credit.
“They have beaten India, Pakistan twice and Afghanistan. They have done everything that you need to call them a champion,” said the former cricketer on 'BatBricks7 presents Run Ki Runneeti' on CricTracker. He added, “In the last one year, they haven’t done well. Potential has not converted into performance. This was kind of validating the potential that everyone saw in this team during the World Cup (2021). So, the potential is now converted into performances.”
Unity is strength ft. Sri Lanka Cricket Team
The Lankans didn’t have many runaway match winners like most other teams in the Asia Cup did. The contribution from each and every player helped the team win the continental cup. Be it Kusal Mendis earlier in the tournament, or Pathum Nissanka in the Super Four or Bhanuka Rajapaksa in the finals, one or the other always stepped up to help the team go the distance.
Deep Dasgupta agrees with the fact that there’s no one single superstar in the team and it’s everyone’s contribution that helped the side in the Asia Cup.
“There hasn’t been one or two heroes in the Sri Lankan team. It’s not that one player has scored a lot of runs or there’s someone in particular who picked up all the wickets. It’s been a complete team effort. If you see the performance of the side, everyone contributed. You also have to give credit to the bravery of the side. They played well because the thought process was right, the playing XI was right. There was bravery, there was smartness, tactical smartness and obviously then the execution part of it,” said the former cricketer in the same show.
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