Rumesh leaves women’s cricket with lot of hope for future

Rumesh Ratnayake completes a successful stint as Women’s Head Coach

• SLC on lookout for replacement

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Rumesh Ratnayake, the former Sri Lanka fast bowler will not have his contract as Head Coach of the national women’s cricket team renewed, but instead will serve Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) in the role of Coach at the High Performance Centre (HPC) at Khettarama.

Sri Lanka Cricket CEO Ashley de Silva said that Ratnayake’s coaching experience will be utilised in different areas with the HPC.

As regards a new head coach for the women’s team, De Silva said that SLC had advertised for the post and have received several responses and after conducting interviews a suitable person would be picked. It could be a local or a foreign coach depending on their availability, he said.

Under Ratnayake’s watchful eyes the Sri Lanka women’s team has grown in stature from where it was before he took over in February 2023. Ratnayake has transformed a team that was lagging behind other nations to rub shoulders with the top sides and also beat them.

The Sri Lanka’s Women’s cricketers secured a historic 2-1 victory against South Africa in the Women’s T20I series in the wake of hammering England in England to capping it by bringing down Asian giants India in the 2024 Asia Cup final to ending their long-time domination in the Asia Cup.

“I have been in the system for 3 years, what I brought to the system is creating an environment, a learning and free environment for the girls to do things their own way,” said Ratnayake.

“If you see India’s batting it’s all about freedom. Even if they are out, it’s okay. Next match we’ll see whether you can make amends by overcoming the mistake. You have to score runs and stay at the wicket, not try to save your wicket and score runs. The thinking today is different compared to our days. It is all due to the advancement of T20 cricket. You have to up-skill yourselves. I’ve told the girls to do that and I saw the progress, but it was a bit stunted after about last year.”

Sri Lanka’s recently concluded tour to India where they were beaten 5-0 by the 50-over World Cup champions, it was not the result that mattered as Ratnayake put it: “Competing with India this has been a good lesson for us. Throughout this tour we showed we can compete. The next time we meet them in six months or a year’s time things can be different.”

According to Ratnayake the girls were a bit apprehensive in their approach, and this he put it down to their failure in the Women’s 50-over World Cup.

“There was a little bit of fright due to the failure. The expectations from our girls were too much. My expectations were also high because they had been playing well, but it was a bit too fast in the progression. The expectations were too sudden and too much for them to handle. The whole of Sri Lanka was expecting them to win. Having won the Asia Cup the next step was to win the World Cup. That was the thought of the nation. Psychologically it had an effect on them.”

Sri Lanka made several changes to their side to India leaving out some experienced players to blood new players.

“Going there we were playing the champions. The system said that we should try out certain players which I thought was not a bad idea. But you were trying out these players with the best. How much these players learnt from that experience will only show later,” said Ratnayake.

“We had five new bowlers. Even though they were thrown into the deep end it will be good for them in the future. You take out experience, it’s not an easy task to compete against a team like India especially in the T20 format. What we did in December will show in about 6 months to a year’s time. It was good exposure for all these youngsters.”

Apart from the inexperience in the bowling, Sri Lanka were let down by some of their established batters like the captain Chamari Athapaththu, Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne – all of whom have scored centuries at international level, Kavisha Dilhari and Nilakshika Silva. 

“The expectations were high on them and they didn’t sort of stick to their actual form. It was a bit disappointing chasing that 221 and coming to 191 was good. Even in the last match it was not bad (175 and 160) but at the end of the day, the quality they possessed was better than what they performed.”

Talking of the positives Ratnayake said, “The system realised where we are in the format at the moment in the world and where India is. Two years ago we won the Asia Cup and two years after, India has won the 50-over World Cup and how they have gone up in the rankings and a few notches in their form. We also have to compete and go up. For that we need to take drastic steps.”

“In India, their system is if some of the players leave, there are players to come and take their place. We haven’t got that luxury yet with replacements. Chamari is at another level but we are talking about our other batters from 1-6, I cannot see anybody in the system who can take their place. Maybe in about 4 years’ time. We are not talking about Indian quality here, we are talking of Sri Lankan quality. To replace them there aren’t any players. Only at the under19 level can I see some sort of respite coming through.”

Ratnayake was thankful that SLC had got the system going from school level some 6-7 years which has started to produce several young players who were picked for the Indian tour. 

“As I see in the system, in four years we will be competing with the world or we will be in the first five all the time. Now, we are trying to compete in one or two matches and do our best. It’s similar to a situation we had with the men’s team in the 80s and 90s.”

Under Ratnayake’s guidance the Sri Lanka women’s team has shown a significant turnaround in fortunes. This fact has been echoed on several occasions by the captain Chamari Athapaththu in no uncertain terms - the certain standards he has set in his coaching formula from meeting deadlines to discipline.