It’s a do-or-die battle for Brian Lara & Co

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene said his line-up was well below their best against South Africa. But they could draw positives out of the result after coming within centimeters of an unlikely win with Malinga’s unprecedented four wickets in four deliveries.

“It was definitely a game for us to win. But the way we played we never had a chance of winning except for that last burst from Malinga,” Jayawardene said.

The West Indies have lots of room for improvement. The hosts were bowled out for 177 in the 45th over on Thursday and New Zealand reached the target with 10.2 overs to spare. Lara has blamed his batsmen for not posting big enough totals, and urged them to concentrate on building an innings.

“We’re not scoring significant numbers of runs, we’ve not made 250 in any of our five World Cup matches so far,” Lara said. “We need to apply ourselves and need to keep the belief in our ability.” Lara said he’d compromised his position in the order to accommodate other batsmen. He might be considering a move back up the order to ensure the West Indies get away to a decent start rather than worry about wobbles in the middle-order.

The low and slow conditions at Guyana’s new National Stadium in Providence are, for the Sri Lankans, like playing at home.

Jayawardene said there was no reason to think the narrow loss would haunt his lineup. Instead, he thought it would give Sri Lanka more resolve. He said the West Indies were under serious pressure in a must-win situation, which also gave Sri Lanka an edge. “For us it’s another game, another chance to get two points,” he said.