Champions Trophy: We played with lot of freedom, says Angelo Mathews

SL captain Angelo Mathews

After defeating India in a high-scoring encounter yesterday, Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews said that the team is not looking too far ahead and focus on the next game against Pakistan in Cardiff on Monday.

"We don't want to think too far ahead. We just want to take one game at a time. Now that the India game is done, we look forward to the next game (against Pakistan which is a virtual quarter-final)," said Mathews. "Our plans for that game too remains the same -no expectations, go out there and play with a lot of freedom," he added.

Talking about the India game Mathews said, "Yeah, it was a very important game for us. No one really expected us to win. That took a lot of pressure off ourselves, and we just went out there, expressed ourselves and you can see what we can do when we play with a lot of freedom," a beaming Mathews said after the seven-wicket win over India.

When asked if other teams in fray will start looking at the Lankans with more respect after this win, Mathews said, "Well, it doesn't matter if the opposition respects us or not. We are out to do a job, and we don't really think about what the opposition thinks.

"I mean, no one really expected us to win yesterday as well, but we knew underneath that we had the talent and we had another opportunity to beat a fantastic team, which we did," he added.