With Sangakkara and Jayawardene gone, Pakistan are favourites against Sri Lanka: Waqar

Karachi Pakistan’s head coach Waqar Younis has exuded confidence that his team can win the one-day series against a Sri Lankan side sans two of their greatest run-getters in modern day cricket. “Mahela (Jayawardena) and Kumar (Sangakkara) were the backbone and inspiration of the Sri Lankan batting line up for the last decade or so. They are now retired and that gives us confidence and strong chance of winning the ODI series in Sri Lanka,” Waqar told PTI before embarking on the tour late Monday night. [caption id=“attachment_1456319” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File picture of Waqar Younis. Reuters[/caption] Jayawardena and Sangakkara announced their retirements from ODI cricket after the World Cup although the latter will continue to play test cricket until the series against India in August. Waqar said whenever a team lost two quality batsmen at the same time they took time to find suitable replacements. “Sri Lanka like us are now rebuilding their ODI combination so I am confident we can win three of the five ODIs there which is required for us to qualify for next year’s Champions Trophy,” the former test captain said. “When you look at their careers and the number of runs they have scored for their team in limited overs cricket (Jayawardena and Sangakkara batted 293 times together in ODIs for a total of 13, 368 runs) you can understand my optimism. “I am not saying we are taking this Sri Lankan team lightly far from it they have always competed strongly in their own backyard and they still have some top class players. But they will miss their two top players of recent years.” Waqar said while Pakistan had been doing well in Tests it was struggling to find the right team in one-day internationals. “In the last few months we have also struggled because our pace bowlers have not been 100 per cent fit and then we lost Saeed Ajmal and we are still struggling to fill the void left by him. He played a stellar role for us in limited overs cricket for the last three to four years,” the former test pacer said. Waqar said he was positive about the Sri Lankan tour as Pakistan had a strong batting line up at a time when the bowling was not at full strength. “The batsmen will have to take more responsibility and they have done that in recent matches. It is good some of our players now maturing in 50-overs cricket as well.” The coach also felt that after playing against a test team at home after six years the Pakistani players were also in high spirits and hopefully find momentum early on the tour. PTI