India vs Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur said the Sri Lankan players need ‘a proper leadership and a proper direction’ to turn things around quickly before the T20 World Cup later this year.
Six years since their title triumph in the ICC World T20 2014, Sri Lanka and their venerable coach Mickey Arthur have eight months to get their act together, and clear the qualification round to play the main round of this year’s T20 World Cup in Australia.
Notwithstanding their 3-0 win over world No 1 Pakistan, Sri Lanka face tough questions of discovering a style of play through a ‘core group of young players’ whom Arthur have identified, but they have a lot of ground to cover in order to be considered as a force to reckon.
“The first one is that the players need a proper leadership and a proper direction,” Arthur told media after his team’s crushing seven-wicket defeat to India in the second T20I here on Tuesday.
“We did not get enough runs. We lost one of our bowlers (Isuru Udana) unfortunately in the warm-up, but I think we were about 20-25 runs short of putting India under some pressure. We had a couple of our batsmen getting starts, but starts are not good enough,” he said.
“For us as coaching staff and players we have got some serious work to do in terms of gameplan, match awareness and playing the big moments. I think we had 49 dot balls tonight, which is too many, as the best teams in the world (would) have 25 dot balls. That is something we need to keep working on,” Arthur said.
“Hopefully, the experience that I bring into this job is going to give them that. It’s going to be a tough ride for the players; it’s going to be hard work. But I’m comfortable that we’ve got the skills there to mould it and put it into something that’s going to be really good. It’s a very proud cricketing nation and I’m comfortable that we’ve got the tools to make it work,” Arthur said.
Arthur, who had extremely successful stints with South Africa and Pakistan, had a forgettable experience with Australia. He admitted that not taking the country’s cultural aspect into his work was where it went wrong.
“We’ve (Sri Lanka) got a very good coaching staff, we’ve got some very skilled players. It’s just about getting all the parts of the jigsaw into place. And then, culturally, it is amazing. South Africa was different to Australia, and Australia was totally different to Pakistan. And Pakistan is different to Sri Lanka in so many ways. That is one of the challenges of coaching, that’s what makes it so special,” he said.
“Getting in and building a team that is representative of that culture–that is the most important thing–the culture comes first. That is probably something I got wrong with Australia. It is that the culture comes first and you build everything around that culture. As long as you got good players, selfless players, players that play and are committed to a cause… as long as you got those guys, you can achieve great things. I think in the Sri Lankan dressing room, we have got those players,” he concluded.
