June 13, 2017
CARDIFF: Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews has blamed the poor fielding and dropped catches for his team’s loss against Pakistan in the last group match of ICC Champions Trophy in Cardiff on Monday.
The defeat also knocked Sri Lanka out of the race to final four.
Talking to media after losing to Pakistan, Mathews says that his team’s fielding performance was “pathetic”.
“Looking at today's performance, well, I thought we were pathetic once again,” he said.
“If we had held those catches, it would have been a different story today, especially at very crucial times -- first over, and towards the end, where we let go of Sarfraz was very crucial,” Mathews rued.
The Sri Lankan captain added that his team was 30/40 runs short but the way players tried to defend the low score was something to feel proud about for him.
“Yes, we were 30, 40 runs short, obviously, but I'm really proud of the guys, the way they came out and tried to defend that. We had that in our bags, but unfortunately, the fielding let us down,” he said.
“When you lose a game, you can always say it was poor batting, it was poor fielding, and it was poor bowling,” he said when asked about the performance of Sri Lankan batting line.
