T20 World Cup 2024: Sri Lanka Crashes Out in First Round, Angelo Mathews Apologizes

June 16, 2024 0 838

Angelo Mathews expressed deep disappointment over Sri Lanka’s first-round exit from the T20 World Cup, acknowledging the team’s failure to meet expectations.

Sri Lanka’s hopes of replicating their 2014 T20 World Cup win were dashed on Saturday. The former champions suffered defeats against South Africa and Bangladesh in the group stage. Their only point came from a rain-affected match against Nepal that was abandoned without a result.

Star player and former skipper Angelo Mathews expressed regret for the team’s performance, acknowledging they had “let the entire nation down.”

“I think first of all we’ve let the entire nation down and we are really sorry because we’ve also let ourselves down. We never expected this. We came across a lot of challenges but those are not something to sort of worry about, but it’s unfortunate that we didn’t make the second round,” Mathews said.

Mathews is preparing for his 90th T20 international as Sri Lanka faces the Netherlands in their next match. Despite their disappointing performance, he stressed the importance of not underestimating the Dutch. With only pride at stake, Mathews emphasized that Sri Lanka will aim to climb off the bottom of the table with a win.

“We can’t take any given team lightly. It’s unfortunate that our Nepal game was washed out but it is what it is,” he said.

“We have just one more game in the tournament, and we’ll play for our pride. We haven’t done justice to ourselves, especially the way we played in the first two games. We are heartbroken and are hurting so much within ourselves,” the former skipper added.

Sri Lanka will play their final Group D match against the Netherlands on Sunday, June16th, a game that holds no bearing on their qualification to the knockout stages.