Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene attributed his team's convincing victory over Zimbabwe to Upul Tharanga's brilliant batting and the aggression of his bowlers.
"Upul batted brilliantly. And so did Kumar (Sangakkara) and Marvan (Attapattu), who has come back strongly. Now, other guys also have to get into the scene," Jayawardene said after the 144-run win over Zimbabwe in their ICC Champions Trophy qualifier.
Praising Tharanga, he said, "In the last 10 ten games our batsmen have scored 11 hundreds and four of them have come from Upul's blade. He batted brilliantly. He is very talented; we have a lot of confidence in him."
He, however, expressed concern about the large number of extras, through no-balls and extras, his bowlers conceded in the match.
"To take a critical view of our game today, the number of wides and no balls are a bit of concern. However, I feel that can be rectified as we have performed much better than the previous game. I think we are going in the right direction."
"Sanath (Jayasuriya) and me have not got a good game yet in the tournament. We are eager to pay a role in the team's victories," he added.
Tharanga cracked a brilliant 110, his sixth hundred in the ODI and second in the tournament, while Sangakkara scored a solid 80 to spearhead the Sri Lankan batting.
With the Sri Lankans now making the cut for the main tournament, Jayawardene was asked whether he now considers his team one of the favourites.
"We have just played Zimbabwe and Bangladesh and we have a long way to go. We have to keep our standards up. We are yet to play the main teams. So, at this moment, we do not consider ourselves favourites," he replied.
A dejected Zimbabwe coach Kevin Curran said his team, now out of the tournament, would aim to end their engagements on a positive note by defeating Bangladesh in their last match on October 14.
"Your recent 3-2 win over Bangladesh will be a confidence booster. We bowled particularly well today in the first ten overs and kept the Lankan batsmen in check.
"We suffered as we lost wickets upfront. And we will take stock of the positives from this game as we prepare for the Friday battle," said the 47 year old former Zimbabwean.
He praised Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor, who were involved in a 62-run partnership for the fourth wicket after Zimbabwe lost their first three batsmen cheaply.
"But I think these two should have converted the thirties into bigger scores. Then we would have competed a little better," he added.
