Lankan Captain blames physical fitness, poor pitches for Sri Lanka’s defeats

Sri Lanka’s T20I skipper Dasun Shanaka in deep thought as his team is eliminated from the T20 World Cup

Player of the Match Rachin Ravindra 

• Rues on missed opportunities as country makes another early World Cup exit
• Calls on Govt. to protect future generation of players from negative criticism

Casting aside the mistakes he and his team have made, Sri Lanka Captain Dasun Shanaka has blamed players’ physical fitness and poor pitches for his team’s dismal failure in the Men’s T20 World Cup, where they failed to make it to the semi-finals despite playing under home conditions and with home support.

“I don’t think physical fitness is up to the maximum level. For this World Cup, we have about four to five injuries, and our best players are out. So, we can clearly see that we have some issues about our physical fitness,” said Shanaka at the post-match press conference.

“When we consider the past few World Cups, Sri Lanka must be on the list with the most injured players. Other teams are way ahead of us when considering fitness levels. Fitness should be number one when playing for a country. It’s unnegotiable. If we look at the injuries we’ve had, it’s very hard to get a good outcome. Everyone knows how good Wanindu Hasaranga is. He is a key player for us. So is Matheesha Pathirana and Eshan Malinga. When we don’t have these players, I’m not saying that as an excuse. Most of the injuries are related to physical fitness. There are some players who are unable to get into the team due to fitness issues. That is something we have talked about all the time over several World Cups.”

Shanaka was also not pleased with the pitches prepared for the World Cup matches, although the preparations are supervised by the ICC. He said he had made complaints about the spin-friendly type of pitches prepared even before the World Cup.

“When playing T20 cricket, we used conditions in the past. If we play on good wickets, the stats, the strike rates would come up. I said before the World Cup I expected the wickets to be good for batting. If we are going to a World Cup, we should go with long-term goals; it’s hard for us to play a tournament like this with short-term goals. We have Sri Lanka’s best batters who have good strike rates and ability in domestic cricket. No one is here by force. No one goes out there to fail; everyone goes with the intention of playing well and winning for the team. Unfortunately, we don’t always get the conditions we want–sometimes we lose games in unexpected ways. We feel sad about what has happened.”

When pressed for answers for the defeats against England and New Zealand, Shanaka admitted that the team management had misread the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium pitch, which he thought would assist so much spin from so early on. New Zealand, who used 17 of the 20 overs with spin, captured six wickets as Sri Lanka stumbled to 107-8.

“The England match was one that we could have won if we were more sensible. This match (against New Zealand) was a one-sided game, even though the bowlers had done well.”

Sri Lanka had New Zealand with their backs to the wall at 84-6 in the 13th over, before allowing them to recover to post a competitive score of 168-7. 

“We must give the credit to Mitch Santner and McConchie because they waited until the 16th over to accelerate. They targeted the short boundary. We went for 70 runs in the last four overs. It’s very unfortunate that it happened in this World Cup because we had a very good chance if we had kept them down to a score like 130, which we could have. It is that kind of a day when everything went wrong for us,” said Shanaka.

Although spectators have been filling the stadiums despite Sri Lanka’s failures, Shanaka said that there was a lot of negativity from outside that is affecting the team. With Sri Lanka having lost successive matches to Zimbabwe, England, and New Zealand in the ongoing T20 World Cup, the criticism against Shanaka and his team is bound to intensify.

“Yes, we lost a World Cup, and we know the reasons. Everyone has concerns,” said Shanaka. “More than talking about that and correcting it, the negativity has come to the fore. We will play and leave, but it’s the players who will come in the future. No matter how we as cricketers try to stay positive, there is negativity outside. That’s a big loss for Sri Lankan cricket. I don’t know if we’ll be able to protect it. I hope the Government can do something about it and protect the future generation of players.”

Player of the Match Rachin Ravindra (32 and 4/27) said: “It’s a hell of an achievement to beat Sri Lanka in their home conditions. I think we know what a great side they are, especially in Colombo, and we are immensely proud of the group for the fight they showed, and to have contributions across the board is extremely pleasing.”

“Something we pride ourselves on as a Black Cap team is adaptation. We’ve been playing in these conditions for a period of time now. As a group, we’re getting better at playing spin. It’s a testament to our training back home, the domestic program, etc. We’re developing and we just try to do our best in each moment.”