- 8 November – Bengaluru – Sri Lanka Assistant Coach Naveed Nawaz pre-match press conference
[Reporter:]
Now, with the last game in the World Cup, the important thing is you’ve got to keep in mind a place at the Champions Trophy is at stake for Sri Lanka. In that sense, how crucial is tomorrow’s game?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Yeah, it’s a crucial game. And the scenarios say that we need to win it. And there are a few more games played after our national. So, preparation was as usual. We came for training today. And I think everyone’s very positive and trying to keep their heads up and go and play the best game tomorrow.
[Reporter:]
Sri Lanka’s batting has been a concern. And do you think that it’s the starts that you’re not got from the openers, that has been the main cause of it.
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Well, there was one thing in the opening which was always concerning for us over a period of time. And we’ve sort of tried to fill in those gaps. We brought in Dimuth for the qualifiers and Kusal, Janith for the World Cups. And also, in the middle order as well. There are a couple of spots in the middle order, which was concerning for some time now. It’s not something that has happened during this tournament, but it has been there. Apart from that, we’ve seen about four of our batsmen has done really well, Charith, Sadeera, of course, Pathum and Kusal has done reasonably well in this tournament. So, it’s the consistency and the overall game, I think. I think when you look at it, the bigger picture, I think in all three departments, we made mistakes in most of the games. Our fielding was not up to the mark and whenever we batted, we didn’t bowl well. So, it was an overall affair I think we should have done better.
[Reporter:]
Back home, it has been a bit chaotic couple of days with the Sri Lankan board and everything that’s happening back home. Today also it has been a hot topic in the parliament. Does it affect as a coaching staff for you guys and does it affect the players in any way?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Well, I think it’s a challenging time of course. But we should control the controllables right now. The only control that we have in this tournament is the game tomorrow. So, during the team meetings and whatever discussions we had amongst the coaching group as well as the players was to sort of focus on that. We cannot focus on the matches that we have played and finished or we cannot focus on anything which is happening back home. So, I guess the way to go forward is to put our energies, put our focus on the game tomorrow and try and do the best to our ability.
[Reporter:]
You have the tournament’s leading wicket-taker and then the next highest wicket-taker for you is somebody who has got eight wickets. How much of a disappointment is it that Madhushanka has not had wicket-taking support at the other end?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Well, it’s disappointing. Like I said before, we had issues in our bowling department and due to injuries mainly, we had Dushmantha Chameera coming in late because of his rehabilitation program, which he was not ready by the time we were taking off for the World Cup. And as well as Lahiru [Kumara], Madhushanka, his rehabilitation was also [delayed] and he was only ready after playing the two training games. And also of course, Wanindu [Hasaranga]. And yeah, we would have probably liked to have somebody to support and back Dilshan [Madhushanka] up with a brilliant tournament he had so far. So, it’s a disappointment, I should say.
[Reporter:]
We’ve seen in this tournament that other teams have had very good finishers and people who raise the run rate at the end of an innings, but Sri Lanka hasn’t had that for quite some time. They haven’t had consistent players in fulfilling that role. Can you talk a little bit about why Sri Lanka is not producing good finishers on par with the rest of the world? And what might be something that Sri Lanka can do in order to produce players like that?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
I think starting, we had to qualify coming into this World Cup. We were not in the top eight teams. So, at the inception, our main focus was to win the qualification tournament and qualify. And then after the qualification tournament, for the last 10 months we played about nine ODIs in this year in a competitive level. And I think it was a concern coming through as well that we had gaps in skills to fill, and it’s a massive subject to talk. I mean, it boils down to so many factors of our cricket back home.
I think there’s a plan in place for the last couple of years. And it’s a long-term plan. Last four years, four-year plan, which has been put in place to strengthen our domestic cricket as well as the skills of the national cricketers. I think we need to be patient, go through that, and stick to the players because the group of players are not going to change other than the players who are coming through from the grassroots. So, we need to see how we can uplift and upskill our players and quickly get them in par with international standards.
[Reporter:]
You spoke about the 4-year plan which was largely developed under Dasun Shanaka’s captaincy – how much of a difference does it make that midway through that he goes out and Kusal Mendis sort of comes in? How different is he, Kusal Mendis as compared to say Dasun Shanaka in his style of leadership? And has there been a difference with the change of captaincy midway?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Well, Dasun [Shanaka] has proved to be a good leader. He has done well as a captain for Sri Lanka. And when we were coming into the tournament, he was perfectly all right. And it’s unfortunate that we lost the main captain, appointed captain of the tournament but it’s also unfair I think to make a judgment on Kusal Mendis’s captaincy in a couple of games and also it would have been a massive burden on Kusal to take over the captaincy during a World Cup.
Obviously, the nitty-gritties of decision making which he was not involved in probably would have affected him as well as a captain.
I guess both are good captains. Both have played really good cricket for some time now. But I guess it’s a bit unfair to judge Kusal on captaincy in such a short period.
[Reporter:]
Tomorrow’s game – can you just talk us through, I mean, what sort of the competition going to be like, not that we want to have one, but I mean, how we all are looking at taking on New Zealand and being the last game, like a must win game, right? So, what sort of competition are you looking at?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
Yeah, we have always played six batters, all-round and four bowlers. For the last couple of months, since we lost Dasun Shanaka, who was batting for us at number seven, we’ve opted to play with four main bowlers and Dhananjaya batting at seven as the all-rounder. I think in these wickets, that’s the least combination you can do. You need to play your 4 bowlers and your all-rounder who should be able to bowl at least 7-8 overs and there should be somebody else who has a cover-up bowler in your playing eleven.
So, I think we might not be able to get away from that because the grounds are smaller, the wickets are flatter. So, we need bowlers who can execute the skills.
[Reporter:]
Kusal started off the World Cup in a blistering fashion. A couple of really good innings. But after he was given the captaincy, you can see a sort of a decline in his performances. Did he come to you with any concerns, whether there was a burden on his shoulders with captaincy or was it just good bowling? What do you think happened with that?
[Naveed Nawaz:]
I think it’s about the mental clarity. We’ve had many discussions and he’s been given the freedom to go about in his preferred fashion.
We’ve discussed before the tournament and agreed that all players are going to play with a positive tempo. And that’s how you should be playing and that’s how we have succeeded as well. And there’s no difference to Kusal Mendis’s approach. We’ve told him that he’s only captaining on the field when we are bowling. That when he goes into the middle, not to carry that burden as a captain, that he’ll be a batter in the middle. We’ve tried to clear his mind as much as possible, not sort of trying to put a burden of captaincy on him.
I’m sure it would have been an extra burden on him, taking over the captaincy in the middle of important tournaments such as the World Cup. I think mainly when it comes to batters, I think it’s about the mental clarity because they might play a rash shot and get out. It’s very difficult to say whether he should have played the shot or should have not played the shot because the main thing that we don’t want to do is push them into a shell and sort of hamper their confidence.
In the modern-day cricket, they should be able to play their shots and also express how they want to play their cricket. The more they play in that fashion, I think they’ll go towards mental clarity, and once they have achieved the clarity, how they want to go about and what works for them, I think that’s the only way forward.
Having spoken to many international cricketers and having discussed with many teams about this, I think the more clarity they have mentally about how they want to play their cricket and how they want to go about in positivity, I think it’s easier and it’s easier for the players to figure out how and what is their game and I think any doubts coming forward which will hamper and which will affect their decision making process which is very critical in batting because they’ve got a very short period, short time to make decisions so the more clarity you have on that you’ll make better choices in the middle.
[Reporter]
As the assistant coach of the Sri Lankan team, with six losses in eight matches played, what areas do you believe require improvement over the next four years?
[Naveed Nawaz]
Think in terms of our batting, we have identified a few things that we need to improve on going forward. We saw three of our batsmen score 100 runs in this tournament. Going with modern-day cricket, it would be nice to be able to score more than three hundred runs. Our approach should involve fielding a lineup with a maximum of five to six proficient batsmen. With a six-batsmen strategy, it becomes vital for at least two or three of them to perform exceptionally well in every match. Otherwise, if we find ourselves losing wickets with only 30 to 40 runs on the board, it places significant pressure on the lower-order batsmen to bat for 15-20 overs. This situation can prove to be challenging for us. It’s imperative that we enhance our batting discipline to overcome this issue. This discipline should extend across all three departments of the game and include how we approach facing the new ball. Also, in the middle phase, dead overs phase or the powerplay our discipline needs to be developed in all three. Also, considering the fielding, when we talk about it, we have seen it at a very low level in this tournament. In this tournament, we have dropped 16 catches. Particularly in matches held at stadiums with pitches of this nature, the consequences of a top-notch batsman’s dropping a catch can be dire, as we may not have the opportunity to rectify the mistake a second time. When considering the player’s experience, they have gained a lot of experience. When we face the next World Cup in the next four years, I think that the players will have reached a good place in terms of experience. Our aim is to develop a focused program that can propel these players to uplift.
[Reporter]
You’ve previously already mentioned the significance of these matches, especially in the context of qualifying for the Champions Trophy. Given the importance of tomorrow’s competition, how have you prepared to tackle this challenge?
[Naveed Nawaz]
Absolutely, this match holds tremendous significance as it can determine our qualification for the Champions Trophy. Securing a spot among the top 8 is our goal. In our morning discussion with the playing group, we emphasized the importance of not dwelling on the past, as we cannot alter what has already transpired. What lies ahead is the final match in this tournament, and that’s where our focus needs to be. Our primary focus is squarely on that upcoming match. We’ve reflected on the lessons we’ve gleaned from this tournament understanding the intricacies of the pitch and grounds, studying the strategies of our opponents, and identifying areas for improvement in our own gameplay. Our objective is not limited to tournaments; rather, we aim to start implementing these learnings from this point onward, continuously enhancing our performance in the matches that lie ahead. We did not want to wait until we went [back] to Sri Lanka. We are trying to do it for tomorrow’s game. We should initiate this process immediately because we’re no longer in the tournament. The players must assimilate the lessons they’ve gathered from other teams, including our mistakes and the positive aspects we failed to maintain. I believe that by promptly aligning our focus in the right direction, particularly before or during tomorrow’s match, we can rectify our errors based on what we’ve learned, enabling us to approach the match with confidence. I’m confident that we can face tomorrow’s match. We have talent within our squad, and our players are highly skilled. We aim to enhance there are experience and mental strengths.