ICC U19 Men's CWC South Africa and Sri Lanka captain quotes
Dunith Wellalage Player of the Match interview: “Especially I want to thank my teammates and my coaching staff: Ranuda Somarathne, Shevon Daniel, they were always helping me.”
On the wicket: “The first few overs the wicket was uneven, so then with 13 overs gone the wicket was good to bat so we wanted to do our best.”
On leading the team with the bat: “Always, we don’t want to give up our wickets so we want to fight with other teams and always believe in ourselves”
On his form in the tournament: “I'm very happy for my performance and I want to thank my coaching staff and my teammate.”
Dunith Wellalage Sri Lanka captain interview: “Especially I want to thank my teammates, especially Ranuda Somarathne, Treveen Matthew, Raveen de Silva and Wanuja Sahan, they bowled really well and Somarathne batted really well. So unfortunately today the South African team lost the match, they did really well and they have good bowlers they are good batters, unfortunately got two run outs. So they lost the match today. I'm very happy for my team’s performance.”
On Somarathne: “He always batting really well for the spinners and fast bowlers. He always rotating the strike and he helped me.
On wicketkeeper Anjala Bandara: “Anjala Bandara is a great wicketkeeper, and he always helping us. We always try to do our best especially Anjala always helping us so.”
On their 5th place play-off: “Our next match is Bangladesh or Pakistan, we want to give a good fight with them.”
South Africa captain George van Heerden: “To be quite honest, I thought our bowlers started off nicely this morning and we were able to get those three quick wickets in the beginning but then unfortunately, we just weren't consistent enough for long enough and then obviously let ourselves down in the field quite a bit. And then with the batting I think the deck is a lot better than we showed today, just a few shots that weren't needed at those stages in the game and probably not in our game plans.”
Executing plans when the fielding is poor: “I think it's quite difficult especially when you got a guy like their skipper in and hitting the ball very well. It makes it difficult to ccaptain because almost you set a plan and whatever and then it works and unfortunately you can't make the most of it. But those things happen in cricket and we just got to pick ourselves up from this now.”
On Kwena Maphake: “I thought he bowled brilliantly today, started off very nicely with the new ball and then bowled seven overs in the trot and I mean he is only 15, so such a good prospect for the future and yeah, we're just very excited about him.”
On what to do differently in the next match: “I think for us personally we've just got to trust our game plans in the way we play and also read the situation. I think today we almost played too many shots that are unnecessary and didn't need to be played in those circumstances today. So just really look at our game plans and try and stick to what we do best.”
On Ronan Hermann: “I think Ronnie did very nicely today, obviously coming in for Joshua Stevenson, who's got injured and unfortunately had to drop out of the squad. I think Ronan batted brilliantly today and I'm so happy for it.”