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Thursday Dec 12, 2024
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The Sri Lanka team have a powwow with head coach Chris Silverwood (centre) and assistant coach Naveed Nawaz (extreme right) before commencing practice at the Shere Bangla National Stadium
The current political and economic turmoil does not see many positives in Sri Lanka at the moment, and assistant coach Naveed Nawaz believes that it will be very good if they can take some positives back home by performing well in the upcoming two-Test series against Bangladesh starting at Chattogram on 15 May.
In a press interaction with the Bangladesh media yesterday, Nawaz said, “So far I don’t think it (the situation in Sri Lanka) has affected us. Most of the cricketers are continuing to do their hard work. Their training has been ongoing for a couple of months. I didn’t see an instance which affected the players. A positive result in Bangladesh would certainly be welcome news for fans back home.”
Nawaz said that he expected a tough contest primarily between the two batting units as both teams were inexperienced in their bowling. “We have a bit of inexperience in our bowling group. The batting is far superior, for both units. They are pretty similar too. Bangladesh has a bit of youth in their bowling group. The two teams are evenly poised; it will be a good series to watch.”
The Sri Lankan players are familiar with Bangladesh conditions and among the current Test squad members, Dhananjaya de Silva and Kusal Mendis played in the Dhaka Premier League that ended in April and off-spinner Ramesh Mendis was also playing in the Bangladesh leagues when he was selected for the tour.
“We will always rely on past experiences as a visitor to this country. We have a couple of players who are well-tuned to Bangladesh, who played in the Dhaka Premier League, BPL and various types of cricket here. There are some who played the last Test series here as well,” said Nawaz. “We are very optimistic and open-minded about whatever that comes through. We will try to adapt as much as possible to conditions and pitches in Chittagong [Chattogram]. It has always produced a lot of runs, so we expect something similar.”
Nawaz, a former Sri Lanka Test and ODI cricketer was Bangladesh’s Under-19 coach for four years since 2018 and in that period saw them to two World Cup campaigns in 2020 when they became world champions and 2022. Bangladesh saw him in opposition colours during Sri Lanka’s training session at the Shere Bangla National Stadium evoking mixed feelings for those present.
