National team has strong bench: Head Coach Gunawardene

Sri Lanka 'A' cricketers return after successful tour of UAE

- BY SA'ADI THAWFEEQ

THE Sri Lanka 'A' cricket team returned home yesterday after a successful tour of the UAE where they won the Explore Afghanistan Tri-Nation Series defeating Ireland Wolves in the final and then following it up with a 308-run win over Afghanistan 'A' in the one-off 4-day unofficial Test.

In fact Sri Lanka 'A' went through the tour unbeaten in all six matches they played (five in the Tri-Nation Series against Ireland Wolves and Afghanistan 'A') and the unofficial test.

Afghanistan had nine national cricketers in their side for both white ball and red ball matches and Ireland Wolves six national players in their side, while Sri Lanka had only Sadeera Samarawickrama who had played Test cricket.

This triumph by the Sri Lanka 'A' side follows their success in South Africa in August-September last year where they defeated South Africa 'A' 2-0 in the two-match 4-day unofficial test series and 2-1 in the unofficial ODI series.

Describing the 'A' team's success in the UAE, head coach Avishka Gunawardene said, "If you take the South African tour we won the ODI series and both 4-day unofficial tests. It was the first time that the 'A' team had won in South Africa. But if you take the tour result wise the one to UAE has been the most successful. Considering all that, these players who have been around with the 'A' team for the last 18 to 24 months have obviously been improving and getting consistent as well. In the Tri-Series we spoke about how a lot of them had the opportunity to get big scores. Some of them got 60s and 70s and got out. That was one of the main things that I addressed before going into the 4-day game and we got 5 hundreds in that. There were a lot of positives that came out of the tour. To win six out of six is quite a good achievement considering the fact that the weather here has been very warm."