No looking back for us now: Jayawardene

St George's, Grenada, Apr 19 (UNI) A buoyed Mahela Jayawardane has virtually served notice to his rivals saying there was no looking back for Sri Lanka in this World Cup now.

Talking to media persons after his side's crushing defeat of Ireland, the Lankan skipper said, ''We have played good cricket till now, we have come here with certain plans which we have been able to achieve and from now on, there is no looking back for us.'' He also did not forget to praise Ireland for playing good cricket in the World Cup.

''They played nine matches and had enough experience but today I am not going to take away any thing from my boys who gave a super display in all departments of the game.'' Asked how his team had prepared for this match after losing to Australia in the previous tie, Mahela said, ''We knew we had to come here and get back into things and I think the boys played really well. The attitude was good and we just have to continue this now.'' ''We have thoroughly enjoyed this tournament up to now. We have achieved our goals so far in getting into the semi-finals and we are going to give it our best shot,'' he said.

''The semi-final (against New Zealand) is something we look forward to. When we left Sri Lanka, there were a lot of expectations but we knew we had to take one game at a time. We knew we had the talent but executing that is the hardest thing so we have come through fine now. There is no looking back now -- we are just looking forward to the rest of the World Cup,'' the skipper said.

Jayawardene said his team was fully prepared to play on bouncy track in Jamaica as ''we have adjusted ourselves well on such wickets.'' ''We got into it in Port of Spain, we did well in Antigua and even in Guyana. Here in Gernada also we had no problems.

''We have a decent bowling attack and the bowlers are capable of bowling on all sorts of tracks. This is World Cup, conditions are same for every body.'' He also scoffed off accusations of manipulations by resting key bowlers Chaminda Vass and Muttiah Muralitharan against Australia.

MORE UNI