Sri Lanka’s Mathews admits ‘we let country down’ at World Cup

GROS-ISLET, Saint Lucia: Star Sri Lanka all-rounder Angelo Mathews admitted Saturday that “we´ve let the entire nation down” as the former champions suffered a first round exit at the T20 World Cup.

Sri Lanka, the champions in 2014, play their final Group D game against the Netherlands after losing to Bangladesh and South Africa. Their only point came from a washed-out no-result against Nepal.

“I think first of all we´ve let the entire nation down and we are really sorry because we´ve also let ourselves down,” said former skipper Mathews. “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 played a key role in his country´s 2014 World Cup victory, scoring 40 runs in the semi-final against West Indies and taking 1-25 in the six-wicket win over India in the final at Dhaka.

However, Mathews, who will be playing in his 90th T20 international, insists his team won´t under-estimate the Netherlands having seen Nepal lose by just one run to South Africa on Friday.

“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.”