Hathu begins to look beyond the Lankan shores
This is where the ball should meet the bat -- Hathurisinghe giving Dasun Shanaka some insights - Pic by Amila Gamage
During his short stint as national head coach, Chandika Hathurusingha helped transform a team plagued with a defeatist mentality into fierce competitors across all formats of the game.
This was part of his strategy to ensure that Sri Lanka win every match played at home, be it Test or limited-over cricket, and then challenge themselves to win matches away from their comfort zone.
In the eight months since arriving in Colombo, the change has been visible. There was a series win across all formats in Bangladesh in January followed by a historic test win in West Indies, a frontier many have historically struggled to conquer. More recently, Sri Lanka beat South Africa 2-0 in the Test series and, after losing the first three matches on the trot, the players fought back in the ODI series to lose the series gracefully before winning the one-off T20 game.
Hathurusingha was all praise for his charges for the impressive turnaround during the last several months, particularly during the last series, where the players displayed maturity by adapting to varied conditions.
“If you look at the last seven months, we have achieved some unique things,” Hathurusingha said. “We won a Test match in Barbados. We became the first Asian team to do so. Then we beat South Africa here 2-0. If you look at those conditions in Barbados and here, they were a complete contrast. All credit to the players for adapting to different conditions.”
However, the bigger challenges are ahead. In September, Sri Lanka will face off with their Asian counterparts at the Asia Cup before heading to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa for three tough assignments before the World Cup.
“So going forward, we have plans,” he said. “We have plans before the New Zealand and Australian series to train under similar conditions. We have very good training facilities in Dambulla and Pallekele. I am very impressed with the practice facilities. For instance, we can play on two different kinds of pitches with two different types of grass at Pallekele. So, if we are going to England and New Zealand, the practice facilities at Dambulla would be ideally suited. We are looking into these little details”.
Sri Lanka have beaten almost all teams but India and Australia in their own backyards since gaining Test status back in 1982. Hathurusingha is therefore keen to exploit every possible opportunity create history when the team travel to Australia straight after the series in New Zealand. Accordingly, the coach said plans are in place to test players in advance to acclimatise them to the Australian conditions.
“We have plans to send some of the Test players back from New Zealand early to Australia during the ODI leg rather than sending them back home after the Test series and getting them back to Australia. Lots of plans are in place. I can only plan and give them best opportunity to prepare the best they can, if we prepare well, the result will take care of themselves,” the coach said.
Sri Lanka play three Tests in New Zealand, then a five-match ODI series and two T20 internationals before the team head to Australia to play two Test matches. These will be immediately followed by a full tour to South Africa,
Sri Lanka’s last bilateral series before the World Cup.
“We are going early and probably we will not play a practice match in South Africa as we are playing lot of cricket,” Hathurusingha said. “The practice environment I can control. I hope there will be similar conditions in Australia and South Africa and hopefully that will help us.”
The focus, however, is the World Cup 2019 in England and Hathurusingha says there are still places up for grabs in the national team. Sri Lanka is left with 16 ODI matches before the tournament in May.
“I think we pretty much know the batting depth we have,” he said. “In bowling, the only concern is the injuries. We did not have a full squad of fast bowlers to select because of injuries. The spin department is still evolving. We are still looking for different combinations we can work with. There are places still up for grabs but overall we know what kind of game plan, barring injuries we have and how we want to play going forward.”