BIPIN DANI
Sri Lanka's 23-year-old Emerging Team captain Dellon Peiris, who won the Player of the Series on Monday in Japan, is ambitious to play in the national team.
Speaking exclusively over the telephone from Japan on Monday, he said, "Definitely that's the dream goal of any young cricketer. I think this is a good break that I got to prove myself and hoping and looking forward to work much harder and make sure that I get an opportunity to represent my country and to bring glory to it".
Dellon Peiris got 9 wickets in four matches (the fifth was washed out because of the rain on Monday) and all four were won by the visiting team.
Thanking the Sri Lanka Cricket and the sports ministry for the opportunity given to him and the boys, the captain said, "This is actually my first tour captaining a national side, so really pleased and happy with the outcome of the series. I think the boys did a great job adapting to the situations and improving on their mindset and skill set to make this achievement a success. All three departments had a huge improvement from game to game and that was the positive side of the series".
"The wickets were not the same as what we get in Sri Lanka. The bounce was not consistent at all. So huge credit to the boys for changing their style of play and adapting to the wickets to make sure we win games".
On his own performance, he adds, "Yes, really happy on how things have started to fall in place in my cricket career in the past few months or so. Lot of effort and hard work was put into making sure that I improved my game, especially from the mental part of the game. I worked really hard on how to handle situations under pressure with bat and ball, so I feel that made the difference in being able to achieve this goal".
Incidentally, the home team Japan has two Sri Lanka-born players, Sapun Nawarathna and Dinesh Sandaruwan. The team manager, Vinothan John was equally pleased with the team performance. Incidentally, this has been the fourth successive win by his four teams under his management. He managed One-day A team against England Lions, his team won the NSL 4-day tournament and one-day tournament as well.
