Players are not that bad, but Japan needs to improve their cricket infrastructure – Kalpage

• Sri Lanka Emerging Team tour of Japan

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Emerging team’s recent tour of Japan for five T20 matches was more to assist the host country to qualify for the 2024 T20 World Cup in West Indies and USA.

In this aspect the Sri Lanka Emerging side selected for the tour gave a good account of themselves winning four of the five T20 matches played against the Japanese national team with the fifth and final game being washed out by rain.

It is not so much of how Sri Lanka Emerging performed that mattered but the quality of cricket that Japan were able to produce against the tourists.

“Japan has a chance to qualify for the next T20 World Cup if they defeat Papua New Guinea in the qualifiers. This tour was all about helping them to lift their standard of cricket to a level where they could achieve it,” said Sri Lanka Emerging Team coach Ruwan Kalpage.

“The players are not bad, they have an Australian Kendal Kadowaki-Fleming who had played for Brisbane Heat in the BBL as their captain and there are also two Sri Lankans in the side Supun Nawaratne and Dinesh Sandaruwan. Japan’s fielding is good and they also have some good bowlers. They have done fairly well, the problem is we cannot assess the true quality of their players because the standard of the pitches was poor with some balls spinning sharply, some balls shooting along the ground and some travelling at head height. That’s why we had very low scores in the four completed matches. Japan has to improve a lot on their infrastructure, the grounds were good but the pitches and dressing rooms need improvement. They have to develop the soil and all that.”

“Looking at the scores it looks like Japan competed well with us. The highest total in the series was 131 by us. We defended those totals by getting them out for less than 100 in all four matches. The top run-getter was their captain who aggregated 101 in the four games, our highest was 97 by Ranmith Jayasena. We tried out all 15 players in the series.”

According to Kalpage, the Sri Lanka Emerging team was the third string Under23 side that went to Japan. “We actually took a third team without the top 20 under 23 players. None of our NSL players went, about 20 were left out and the team was picked on the second best players who had performed well in batting and bowling. Overall the players who have played well in the Emerging also needed a break. Of the 15 players, 13 went on a tour for the first time. It was some exposure for them.”