Kumar Sangakkara rues missing out on on the opportunity to get accustomed to the new venues in Pallekele and Hambantota. (file photo) AFP PHOTO /Lakruwan WANNIARACHCHI.
Sri Lanka’s preparations for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 suffered another severe blow after it was revealed on Sunday that the 15 member World Cup squad will not have any training sessions at Hambantota or Pallekele ahead of the World Cup.
This means that the national cricket team will play their first World Cup games at the two newly constructed venues with no idea about the ground situation.
"We would love to train at all the grounds, but we also need to have the proper facilities to train. Side wickets, gyms, all of these things [need to be] available at the venues otherwise it is difficult," Sangakkara told journalists on Sunday, after his team won a three match series against the West Indies 2-0.
"We are very happy with the facilities here in Colombo. Its a bit too late now to go and work camps in Pallakele or Hambantota. We have only got two weeks and we’ve got to prepare as well as we can in those two weeks with the best of facilities and those facilities are here in Colombo."
The Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) interim committee and the World Cup secretariat have made a complete mess of completing construction at the World Cup venues, missing the November 30 ICC deadline by more than two months.
SLC’s plans to play the three match ODI series against West Indies at the two World Cup venues was also shot down by the ICC, who demanded the 14 day exclusivity period for the venues, pointing out that construction was still not complete at the venues.
The delay in construction meant that only a handful of inter-club and inter-provincial matches were played at the R. Premadasa Stadium, while there were no games at all at Pallekele or Hambantota.
"We would have loved to have gone there a month in advance, set our camps and maybe play a bit of provincial cricket there and some of the club games at those venues. It would have been great for other players and the World Cup squad to experience those venues and match conditions, but things are what they are, so we accepted the fact that we’ll have to go in and play World Cup matches on those grounds without knowing the conditions too much," Sangakkara added.
"We will try and maximise our advantage with our varied bowling attack and our batting strength and our fielding to the maximum. We are ready to play on the wickets we get and we can’t, no matter how you talk about it, change anything any more. They are what they are.
"The crowd will be there and we’ll be playing at home, so at least we’ve got two factors going for us."
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