Chester-le-Street (England): Former Sri Lankan skipper Angelo Mathews on Monday after his side's 23-runs win over West Indies in a crucial World Cup tie revealed that he hadn’t been bowling even in the nets lately.
On Monday, Mathews bowled the best ball of the match to dismiss a well set Nicholas Pooran and in the process titled the match towards Sri Lanka. Mathews also said that the ball that got rid of centurion Nicholas Pooran was the first one he bowled in eight months.
“I haven't held the ball for, what, a good eight months and that was the first ball after eight months! Yeah, I mean, we knew that we had to make up two overs,” Mathews told reporters.
“We couldn't just bowl the spinner towards the end when Pooran was batting beautifully, so I said to the captain, ‘Look, I have a bit of experience, so I'll just try bowling the two overs’”.
Mathews was also all praises for young West Indies wicket-keeper batsman, stating that Pooran’s effort was an excellent one.
“Pooran was the man that we needed to get and, you know, quite fortunate to get him in the first ball before he clobbered me for a few sixes! But yeah, it was a fantastic effort by Pooran.
“He batted all the way through and he nearly got them through, but it was fortunate for us, you know, to get him at the right time.”
Mathews had not bowled a single ball in international cricket in last one and a half year due to a spate of injury issues. The last time before West India vs Sri Lanka match, he bowled internationally was in December 2017.
Mathews, however, also insisted that he is now working on getting back to pulling double duty for the team.
“Yeah, unfortunately, I didn't have the time to build it up. I mean, I need a little bit of time to start bowling and build it up because the body needs to adapt, so it takes a little bit of time.
“Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time to build it up before the World Cup. Glad that I was able to, you know, help the team out bowling a couple of overs today, but I'm trying my best to start bowling as soon as possible going forward.”
