The mystery spinner Maheesh Theekshana has openly voiced his dissatisfaction with Sri Lanka's T20 World Cup 2024 campaign, stating that the team will likely be eliminated before even making it to the Super 8 rounds. 

maheesh-theekshana-sri-lanka

After losing important games against South Africa and Bangladesh, to make matters worse, rain at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York on June 12 forced the cancellation of their important match against Nepal, preventing any play.

Sri Lanka’s first two losses came against South Africa and Bangladesh, where their batting lineup struggled significantly. These defeats left the team in a do or die position, needing a victory against Nepal to stay in contention. However, the washout sealed their fate, eliminating them from advancing further in the tournament.

During a press conference following the washout, Theekshana was honest about Sri Lanka's performance. He confessed that the team was not up to standards in their first two matches of the tournament, saying

"Everything went wrong this year. We didn't bat well and we didn't assess the conditions really well and our plans, everything went wrong and I think as a team right now it's not going to be easy for the next game but still I think when we look at the last two games that we played, we didn't play well. We didn't play the best cricket that we had. So, I think we didn't earn the spot - the way we played in the first two games. I don't think we earned the spot for the Super 8, but still we have one game left, so we'll try to do our best," said Theekshana

He also added that they had high hopes before entering the tournament "We had high hopes about this world cup. I am not satisfied with the performance of our team. We had a good mentality, bowlers were practised well, batsmen were also practised well in the last tournament. We were in a good position when we came to this tournament. I think we have done a lot of mistakes as a team, so we couldn’t enter the super eight,".

Sri Lanka will face the Netherlands in their last group match on June 17.