SL expose ‘lack of fighting spirit’ in massive defeat against India

 Coaches Silverwood and Nawaz

• Assistant Coach and Batting Coach Naveed Nawaz admits “as coaches we are all responsible for whatever happens”
• Opines lack of fighting spirit is cause for SL’s collapse
• Admits there is skill gap between Sri Lanka and other countries participating in ICC 2023 World Cup
• Claims none of team members were able manage situation
• Stresses needs to establish a psychological framework to address any issues concerning players
• Brushes aside humiliation by India is start of decline of Sri Lanka cricket
• Admits debacle a cause of concern but don’t see it as decline of Sri Lanka cricket

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq 

reporting from India

MUMBAI: Following Sri Lanka’s dismal batting performance against India in the World Cup league match here on Thursday Assistant Coach and Batting Coach of the team Naveed Nawaz said that as coaches they were all responsible for what happened.

Sri Lanka’s suffered quite a few batting collapses during the year against India 73 all out in Trivandrum in January in an ODI, 50 all out in the Asia Cup final at the R. Premadasa Stadium and 55 all out in the World Cup league game at Mumbai. On all three occasions it has been the Indian seamers who have run through the Sri Lankan batting.

While the batters need to take up responsibility for such batting collapses, how much of responsibility should the batting coach take?

“One hundred percent,” said Nawaz. “There are areas that have worked and there are areas that have not worked, so as coaches we are all responsible. We engage in the match after thorough preparation, and I believe it’s important that we take full responsibility for any errors.”

“As coaches, we do face certain limitations. We can get involved in some things and we can’t interfere in everything. We must respect that not all players may openly discuss their issues. Our primary role is coaching, and we strive to support the players in their mental preparation for the tournament and their training to the best of our abilities. Additionally, we are available to assist with any other challenges they might face. If this involves technical or practical challenges, we put in significant effort to assist them.”

Nawaz said that Sri Lanka needs to establish a psychological framework to address any issues concerning players that may arise because that is not an area where the coaches can help.

Nawaz gave credit to the Indian bowlers the way they performed. “They performed admirably. When it comes to our batsmen, despite the presence of some swing. I can’t say exactly because when there is a new ball the fact that there is an oscillation is something we have already expected. During a challenging moment in the match, we noticed that none of our team members were able to step back and effectively manage the situation.”

“Angelo Mathews made some attempts in this regard. After all the others were dismissed, it became challenging to expect our tail-end batsmen and bowlers to excel in their batting. Therefore, I believe it wouldn’t be fair to criticise our overall batting performance. We’ve demonstrated our ability to score well in this same tournament against other strong bowlers, achieving about 340 runs. Instead, I view our deficiency in terms of our fighting spirit in this particular instance.”

Nawaz admitted that there is a skill gap between Sri Lanka and other countries participating in the World Cup. 

“That is why we had to participate in the World Cup qualifier matches before entering the main World Cup competition. This gap became particularly evident when we faced the top teams. Additionally, I believe there are a few shortcomings in our batting line-up. There were some minor issues in our opening batting, and we also noticed some small deficiencies in the positions of number six and number seven. We tried to address and improve these areas, but unfortunately, we didn’t get the expected performances from Kusal Janith or Dimuth Karunaratne.”

“On a positive note, other players like Pathum (Nissanka), Sadeera (Samaraweera), Kusal (Mendis), and Charith Asalanka were among the runs. However, in the match against India, what stood out was that after losing the first two wickets quickly, our middle-order batsmen had to face the new ball, and we were unable to prevent further wickets from falling.”

Nawaz brushed aside the thought that these collapses are a start of the decline of Sri Lanka cricket and said, “Well, it’s a cause of concern for sure, but I don’t see it as the decline of Sri Lanka cricket. We’ve got a young group of players; we’ve got only a few guys who have played over 100 ODIs here in this group. So, I think it’s a rebuilding stage where a couple of new players are still learning the trade I would say. We have some exciting prospects back home and also in this group and I hope they’ll take every opportunity to learn from the mistakes done and move forward and do well in the future. That’s the only hope that we have.”

With the 2023 Cricket World Cup more or less done and dusted for Sri Lanka, they now have to concentrate on trying to finish above eight of the league standings in order to qualify to play in the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy in Pakistan. Sri Lanka, currently seventh with four points, has just two more games in the World Cup to improve their position. They play Bangladesh at Delhi on 6 November and New Zealand at Bengaluru on 9 November.

“I think it’s going to be important that we finish above the eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy. Like they say, we’ve got to find a factor to motivate the boys and keep them alive because we had the same issue in June when we played the World Cup Qualifiers,” said Nawaz. “There was no guarantee when we went into Zimbabwe to qualify for the World Cup. We had to win all our games and as well we came to the finals to qualify for this tournament. I guess we’ve crossed that barrier and we’ve got a pretty young team. We will get the boys motivated and see what we can do in the next two games and try to bring out our best cricket.”