Sri Lanka all rounder Farveez Maharoof’s brilliant performance against Ireland is giving his team a serious headache for their semifinal. With New Zealand their likely opponents in the semifinal, it would be interesting to see who will Mahela Jayawardene prefer, swing and batting skills of Maharoof or pace and guile of Dilhara Fernando.

It is worth mentioning in this regard that both Lasith Malinga and Dilhara Fernando were rested yesterday against Ireland and Maharoof performed admirably taking four top order wickets. With Lasith Malinga, the most impressive bowler in this World Cup this far, all set to return against New Zealand, the toss up is between Fernando and Maharoof.

According to captain Mahela Jayawardene,

It’s a good headache to have. Everyone in this squad has put their hands up when it comes to performing. It would be a worse headache if we were not performing. We have achieved our goal of making the semi-finals. When we left Sri Lanka we knew we had to concentrate hard, we knew we had the talent to make the last four but we just had to execute our plans. That was the hardest thing.

Looking at the team composition for Sri Lanka, I would definitely go for Dilhara Fernando because they are already playing with seven batsman and if they can’t do the job, how can Maharoof score runs. Furthermore, Fernando has a lot more pace and swing as compared to Maharoof and with taking wickets being the key in one day cricket, Fernando would be the better option.

espnstar