Angelo Mathews and Dinesh Chandimal to return for South Africa tour

The Sri Lankan cricket team will be very happy with the current scenario as there star players Angelo Mathews who suffered a leg injury and Dinesh Chandimal who broke his thumb have both recovered and are expected to get back to the Lankan squad for their upcoming tour to South Africa where they are scheduled to play three Tests, five ODIs and three T20Is.

The inclusion of these players will surely bolster their chances ahead of the important series against the Proteas and will be a confidence booster for the whole team. “Except for one or two changes, they (South Africa) are pretty much a settled team for the past four-five years,” Mathews was quoted by Cricbuzz on Saturday.

“They have been going with the same sort of players, maximum 20. They have managed a set combination and now the results are showing. The settled combination is the one that has led to their success today.”

“We are now doing the same, we talked about it a lot. The solution is not to chop and change but be patient with the players,” said Mathews.

Despite their inclusion in the squad, it will be pretty tough for the inexperienced Lankan side to beat the Proteas in their own backyard as they lack the depth in the batting order despite their bowling attack being a competitive one. Before leaving for South Africa, Mathews stressed on the fact that the Lankan batsmen must pull up their socks and perform handsomely.

“With Dushmantha Chameera coming back into the team and young Vikum Sanjaya earning his spot, we have got a fairly decent pace attack which can put them under pressure, but we need to score runs as a batting unit,” the skipper said. “It’s going to be our main challenge; the boys have worked extremely hard in the past few weeks.”

The team management has brought in some innovations and made their batsmen bat on granite surfaces in order to cope with the pace and bounce of the South African pitches. “We used a lot of granite stuff, especially the batters. When you use a piece of granite, the ball is coming on to you quicker. The granite is laid down on the pitch and you can throw the ball on it so that it comes on quicker,” he said.

“We’ve done everything possible to try and counterattack the South African fast bowlers and get used to their conditions. We have about 12 days before we play our first Test on Boxing Day. We’ll try and use those days to the maximum so that we get things right.”