“It’s a challenging time, of course,” Naveed Nawaz, Sri Lanka’s assistant coach, admitted on Wednesday, a day ahead of their clash against New Zealand. “But we should control the controllables right now. The only control that we have in this tournament is the game tomorrow. We cannot focus on the matches that we have played and finished or we cannot focus on anything which is happening back home. So, I guess the way to go forward is to put our energies, put our focus on the game tomorrow and try and do the best to our ability.”
Sri Lankan cricket is currently experiencing not-so-good circumstances.
Critical player injuries, a commander change in the middle of the tournament, the dismissal and reinstatement of the cricket board, and the spinners’ lackluster performance. The team’s eventual on-field performance has yielded a meager two victories in eight games due to the prevailing chaos. Their potential to advance to the semifinals this season has been eliminated. Although they may hinder New Zealand’s celebrations and provide assistance to Pakistan and Afghanistan, two Asian countries, they are primarily concerned with achieving a position within the top eight of the points table.
While New Zealand competes to secure a semifinal berth in the World Cup, Sri Lanka will engage in an unofficial Champions Trophy qualifying match in the same match.
The issues persist throughout the innings, commencing with the top of the order, where Pathum Nissanka is not the only batter able to secure the position. Sri Lanka’s assistant coach, Naveed Nawaz, acknowledged that the team had been striving to resolve this matter for quite some time. However, they have encountered difficulties in sustaining consistency across all three facets of the game, resulting in the futility of even the few positive attempts.
“We attempted to fill in those gaps over a period of time after one aspect of the opening was consistently troubling us,” Nawaz said prior to Wednesday’s match against New Zealand. “Dimuth Karunaratne was acquired for the World Cup qualifiers, while Kusal Janith was named for the tournament.”
“There are a couple of spots in the middle order, which was concerning for some time now. It’s not something that has happened during this tournament, but it has been there. Apart from that, we’ve seen about four of our batsmen has done really well, Charith [Asalanka], Sadeera [Samarawickrama], of course, Pathum [Nissanka] and Kusal [Mendis] has done reasonably well in this tournament.
“So, it’s the consistency and the overall game, I think. I think when you look at it, the bigger picture, I think in all three departments, we made mistakes in most of the games. Our fielding was not up to the mark and whenever we batted, we didn’t bowl well. So, it was an overall affair I think we should have done better.
