We lack consistency – National Women’s Head Coach Rumesh

Sri Lanka Women’s Cricket Head Coach Rumesh Ratnayake

• Tri-Series has opened up areas for improvement ahead of World Cup

Sri Lanka Women’s Cricket Captain Chamari Athapaththu

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka Women’s Cricket Head Coach Rumesh Ratnayake said that the team lacked consistency after they finished Runner-up to India in the recently concluded Women’s One-day Tri-Series played at the R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium.

India beat Sri Lanka by 97 runs in the final, but Ratnayake said the series had helped his team identify their areas for improvement ahead of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup scheduled to be held in India in September – October.

Sri Lanka played against two top sides in ICC Women’s ODI team rankings – 3rd placed India and 5th placed South Africa and beat them both in the league matches but likewise lost the follow-up matches against the same opponents.

“We beat South Africa and India but subsequently lost to them in the next two games. That’s the level we are at the moment. We were on a similar footing against them in the return games but how do we do that consistently? What do we need to do to be consistent? That’s a mental, physical and skill attribute. All three are involved. It is how we bring it out at the point when we need it,” said Ratnayake analysing Sri Lanka’s performances in the Tri-Series.

“On our day when we play to our best we have a measurement of the opposition. If we can come 8 out of 10 on a regular basis our chances of beating another team is really great. India and South Africa know how to sustain their skill levels, whether they are mental or physical and know how to come back. The maturity they have we have to build on that into our game in the next 3 months before the World Cup.”

Ratnayake said the Tri-Series had opened up what the team can do and what it needs to do.

“We have to take the positives which are huge. I wish this series happened in August but nevertheless I will take it. At the moment we don’t have any other international commitments till the World Cup. This series has given us a lot of learnings. We have a lot of time to sort out a few things and to improve on things we have been doing and not doing. Seeing the standards of the others are different, we have to take them as a bench mark and come to a place where we can compete better.”

“When we bowled, batted and fielded well we won matches. We need consistency in all three departments. If we win a match we can’t say that we have done it all, but we have to improve. Six fifties in the series is pretty poor, our bowling there has no consistency. We don’t bowl to the set fields and that has happened a lot. It can’t happen at an international level. Our execution is poor. We have to get that right before going into tactics and things like that. I believe in batting, bowling and fielding we have to get our executions right. If you have to bring it down to two major decisions: Execution and decision-making.”

One of the key areas Sri Lanka has to really work on is reducing the number of dot balls. In the five matches they played Sri Lanka played down 736 dot balls compared to the 654 balls they scored runs off. Ratnayake is of the view that the players coming under the tutelage of different coaches could be a factor and the other is their bat speed and bat control.

“Other than the first game I am happy that we scored 200 plus in all the other matches which is not bad. The skill level of a batter scoring a four at ease and us scoring the four in the last split second, that’s the level which we need to build on. If you see the back lift of the Indian players, everybody takes it high and is in a very good position before executing a shot whether it’s a fast ball, yorker, or spin. The process of the hands are the same. But in our process the bat is down before the ball is almost under your eye, then we have to speed up the hand and can’t have control of the shot. We need to have bat speed and bat control both.”

“We have control of the players only in our environment, but players come across so many different coaches. At training we discuss, we put it to practice and watch it happening. Sometimes it’s so lovely to see it happening but when you go to a match you see them blocked. Using the feet is not there. If a person stretches and plays a shot she is not in control of the shot. The talent is there but it is not the skill at the level of India and South Africa. We are on 5 and they are on 8, a huge difference. I am glad it happened now so we can work on it.”

Ratnayake said that he was not worried about the Captain Chamari Athapaththu’s batting form but admitted that she had a problem facing spin.

“She is not in the best of form, out of 10 she is about 5. If she gets to 8 that is equivalent to her getting a 100. She has a technical and mechanical thing against spin which she is aware of and working on.”