Senior players in the middle order must step up: Coach Silverwood

• ‘The great thing is we managed to look at our mistakes before we come back for the WC’

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka’s head coach Chris Silverwood said that senior players in the middle order must step up and take the responsibilities to ensure they put up a competitive score in ODI cricket if they are to compete equally with teams like India.

Silverwood was voicing his opinion after Sri Lanka had conceded the three-match ODI series 2-0 to India, losing the second match by four wickets at Eden Gardens, Kolkata on Thursday.

Sri Lanka were off to a fine start posting 102-1 in the 17th over but a middle-order collapse saw them post a disappointing score of 215 in 40 overs. Although Sri Lanka fought back to capture four top order Indian wickets for 86, the target was insufficient to stop India from coasting home by four wickets with 40 balls to spare.

“With a start like that we would have liked to have pushed on. It is certainly something that we need to address,” said Silverwood at the post-match media conference. 

“We can’t keep losing wickets as we did in the middle overs. Today we needed some senior players in that middle order to step up and take the score on further and pose a competitive score which we could have tried to bowl India out with. But that didn’t happen.”

“We got off to a great start which was superb, but when the spin came on, we lost wickets at regular intervals and put ourselves under pressure. Firstly, credit to the Indian side the way they bowled, the way they fought back, they put us under pressure. Losing those wickets made things come to a halt.”

“There was a little bit of help from the wicket. It held up a little bit for the spinners but the fact is actually I don’t think it’s a pitch where you got a lot of turn, obviously it suited the Indian bowling. We didn’t play particularly well in that middle phase. We’ve only ourselves to blame though.”

“To be fair with the score that was on the board there was never really that much pressure so we had to attack and try and force the wickets. As long as they batted well and ran the scoreboard, they were in control of that. If we’ve got a couple of more wickets in the end, it would have made it very interesting. But the fact is we had to attack and attack hard.”

Silverwood said that the series has spotlighted the areas Sri Lanka need to work on ahead of the World Cup which will be held in India in October-November.  

“Obviously in this game we need to make sure that once we are off to a good start we capitalise on that. We have to learn to post big scores,” said Silverwood. 

“Obviously the World Cup is back here in a few months’ time, we have to make sure we learn the lessons with the bat as well as with the ball as well.”

“Watching how the Indian bowlers operated in their own conditions has been an eye-opener for some of our guys. The way the fast bowlers operate, hitting the length hard consistently in good areas, it is something that we need to work on. The great thing is that we managed to get a look at that before we come back for the World Cup. Hopefully we can address those things.”