Sri Lanka will be a force to be reckoned with going forward – Mahela

Sri Lanka’s Consultant Coach Mahela Jayawardene stresses a point during the post-World Cup briefing

Sri Lanka Captain Kusal Mendis

• “We have to trust and be patient with the process put in place”

Former Sri Lanka Captain and current National Cricket Team Consultant Coach Mahela Jayawardene said a process has been put in place for the present squad of players to emerge into a world class unit, but the trust and patience needs to be there to see its success in another 3 to 4 years.

“We knew that when we set this team up two years ago, we were going into this 50-over World Cup with less experience,” said Jayawardene speaking to the media at a post-World Cup briefing at the SLC headquarters yesterday. “For us to compete at the highest level we need a higher group of players with 150-200 plus ODI games, that would have been a different story. We didn’t have that. It is an investment for the future. We all knew when we made that call and we were working towards that.”

“The T20 World Cups we had the skill sets that enabled us to compete well in them. We won an Asia Cup in T20 and came to the final in the 50-over Asia Cup. That was a high point for us. It’s a process that we have to be patient with because this is a skilful group, most of the guys are in their early twenties or mid-twenties which means they are going to be a force to be reckoned with going forward.”

“We are all as a management group trying to get this project right and understand that and take full responsibility. It’s a process we all have to trust and be patient. Hopefully down the line 3-4 years we’ll see the success then we all can humbly be satisfied by what we’ve put in place has worked.”

Jayawardene stated that because of the slow wickets we play at home the players were unable to adjust to the Indian pitches.  

“When we went to India, we saw the wickets and how they were behaving, that we had to play at a very high tempo which we discussed with the batsmen. It is something that they were not used to particularly leading up to the World Cup because the surfaces we were playing did not allow us to do that.”

“It’s a question of us understanding what our skill-set is and how we can play to our strengths. Domestic cricket is played on slowish wickets so the batsmen will not trust their shot selection on good wickets because they are not used to that. So, it was a challenge against high quality bowling units in the World Cup.”

“We gave them (the batsmen) the freedom to go out and play at that high tempo. I thought the first two games they executed really well. Unfortunately for me the biggest game for us momentum-wise was against Pakistan where we got 340 and we couldn’t defend it. If we were able to defend that total, things probably would have been much different with the confidence in a tournament like that.”

With regards to the bowling, Jayawardene said, “We had a bowling unit which we planned building up to but we couldn’t take those five bowlers. They have not played for us together in one single tournament for 16 months. These are learning how to keep our best players on the park. That’s something that individually as players they need to be much more disciplined in their fitness and how they go about doing it. Because of our fitness, the fatigue got to us from the first game to the last. We saw guys making a lot more mistakes that happen with physical and mental fatigue. The execution and the concentration lack is because there are areas we know we need to improve. As a unit with skill-set the players know where they are.”

Jayawardene said that people should be realistic about expectations going into this World Cup.

“We played the qualifiers to get to the World Cup. We knew we were the two bottom teams in that pile and that showed in our performances throughout the year. We played about 35 ODI games in the last 16 months and we have a very good record. Being 20% win we were up to 50%. We won 25 games and lost 13 games.”

“We are heading in the right direction but at the same time skill-wise compared to other teams we need to improve. The boys know that. They’ve been honest in their conversations during the World Cup, bowling and batting wise we need to be much more consistent. To me the biggest concern is building our intensity on the field. We dropped 16 catches which is the highest in the competition. When you are going with a depleted bowling unit you cannot have any mistakes. It’s nothing to say they didn’t work hard, but on the field their anticipation and execution we lacked. That comes with experience.”