Sri Lanka blames fitness

Colombo, Mar 27: Sri Lankan cricketing authorities blamed a lack of fitness and the poor form of the side's top order batsmen for failing to progress beyond the quarterfils of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Chief Selector Sath Jayasuriya -- a member of Sri Lanka's 1996 World Cup-winning team -- said officials will draw up new standards to ensure better fitness and take "hard decisions" about players who were below par.

"This (fitness) is an area we need to address and take hard decisions about players who don't meet the new standards we will set," Jayasuriya said, in a post-mortem of Sri Lanka's failure.

Injury-prone Sri Lanka was kicked out of the tourment after losing to South Africa by nine wickets in the quarterfils on March 18.

Jayasuriya said five players -- Dinesh Chandimal, Dimuth Karuratne, Dhammika Prasad, Jeevan Mendis and Ranga Herath -- had to be replaced during the tourment because of injuries.

Skipper Angelo Mathews, meanwhile, said he was disappointed with the top order batting that led to the defeat against South Africa. IANS

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