Mahela Jayawardene focuses on India challenge

London: It was a special day for Mahela Jayawardene at The Oval on Monday. His classy unbeaten knock of 84 which ensured Sri Lanka put up a fighting total also saw him going past the 11,000-run mark in One Day Internationals but he has already turned his focus on beating India in the semi-finals.

“Indians are playing some really good cricket. Their batting looks really strong, so those are key areas that we need to focus a bit on,” he said.

Though India had beaten Sri Lanka in a warm-up game in which Virat Kohli hit a brilliant 144, Jayawardene is not bothered about it. “Warm-up games or whatever, it doesn’t count right now. This is semi-final and it’s a big tournament. So I am keenly looking forward to the contest.”

When asked about how it feels to go past a career milestone, Jayawardene said: “I didn’t feel anything. Obviously, pleased when the numbers came up. But, obviously, I can tonight probably reflect more on that achievement because we won the game as well. So, importantly, the contribution that I made towards the team is much more valuable for me, but quietly I should be able to reflect on that achievement.”

If it was Kumar Sangakkara who sparkled in the victory over England, it was the other veteran in the team, Jayawardene, who stole the limelight against Australia. The two are making life easy for skipper Angelo Mathews. In fact, Jayawardene even said that he does give tips to Mathews: “I try not to do too much. Let him [Mathews] make all the calls, but try to help him out in tough situations when I feel that he is out of sorts or something. It is also important to make mistakes sometimes or make good calls, and learn while on the job. So, I try to help him as much as possible in tough situations, just be wise here and there. But I think, so far in this tournament, we’ve had some really tough games, and I thought Angelo handled himself really well, so our job is to try to help him as much as possible.”

Jayawardene said his team was confident throughout about victory against Australia despite the fighting last-wicket partnership. “I think the entire time the situation probably dictated how the game was unfolding. They [Australians] were going hard upfront to try and qualify within 29 overs, so we knew there was an opportunity for us to grab wickets, which we did. Obviously, when they stopped doing that, we knew we had the time that we needed to take three wickets. So, two wickets at that particular time, which is always going to be tough because they only had to score two or three times an over. So, we had to be a bit more creative and be patient. So, it was a fascinating game of cricket purely because of the situations where Australia was and where we were.”

To a query on how desperate he is to win a global tournament for Sri Lanka given the team’s finals record, Jayawardene said: “You could see how desperate I was today [to win]. So I will be desperate for every game to win. It’s not about trophies or whatever; it’s just to win matches. So I’ll have that same passion and same desperation to win games, doesn’t matter if it’s a semi-final or final or just a group game. As long as I have that attitude and the rest of the boys, we’ll go a long way.”