Akila Dananjaya talks about joining the national team hours after marriage

Marriage on a day and a six-wicket haul the very next day; this incident was not heard of before yesterday (August 24). But Akila Dananjaya, the Sri Lankan offie achieved this remarkable feat at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium in Pallekele. The Lankan team was already reeling after the 3-0 thrashing at the hands of Men in Blue in Tests and a heavy defeat in the first ODI game.

The 2nd game also saw no change in the trajectory as the Lankan batters failed to put up a challenging total. Chasing a target of 237, openers Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan were marching on towards the target easily having stitched a century stand. But then came the off-spinner to provide his team with a ray of hope. However, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and former Indian skipper MS Dhoni formed a concrete hundred-run partnership to seal the match.

But that doesn’t take away the credit from Dananjaya. He picked up 6 wickets giving away 54 runs in his quota. After the match, the 24-year old acknowledged the superb efforts of Dhoni and Kumar. “They were set and I thought better to get back later on if someone breaks the partnership. We wanted to win the game. Once wickets come along we also gained confidence. But Bhuvi and Dhoni were superb. They batted really well against our bowlers. Nothing much of a change on the wicket,” he said.

“We would have been happy had we won the game. I am very sad at the moment. I would have returned a happy man had we won. I realised that the off-spin was not helping much. So I decided to get back to my variations. The target we had to defend wasn’t too much either. So we had to take wickets. I bowled a lot of variations and it went really well,” the 24-year-old further added.

On coming back from his wedding

Dananjaya opened up on the experience of coming back to the team hotel directly from marriage saying “Wedding was in the afternoon. When I got back to the team hotel it was around 11:30 in the night. I wanted to reach earlier than that but it took a little longer. The wedding was at Moratuwa. Finished around 4 pm and we were bit late when we came.”