Changing ‘pillow’ not ideal remedy for SL women’s cricket
Harsha de Silva
The Sri Lanka women’s cricket team was on its way to gaining the status of a feared side just like their male counterparts, but it looks as if their journey will slow down for some years.
One of the reasons was the debatable overall performance of the team at the last ICC Twenty20 World Cup held in Australia, besides the retirement of seasoned campaigner Sashikala Siriwardena. The most worrying aspect is the constant change of the head coach, which is akin to the Sinhala proverb ‘changing the pillow when there is a headache’.
The women’s head coach Harsha de Silva, who was reappointed by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) for the second term in August 2018, is highly unlikely to get a contract renewal in a couple of months. But the reason of his exit somehow does not provide the remedy that is expected to occur in women’s cricket in Sri Lanka.
Since Sri Lanka made their presence felt on the international stage in 1997, women’s cricket has had its ups and downs while making certain improvements in playing standards. However, the local lasses still were not in the expected league, as they moved backwards than forwards.
De Silva’s initial tenure, between 2010 and 2013, was somewhat significant to women’s cricket, as it showed some promise of improvement and change of attitude among players when it came to approach, handling situations and few other aspects. He still feels Sri Lanka women’s cricketers were making a smooth transition from an ‘average side’ to a ‘team to beat’.
“In my first stint between 2010 to 2013, we had a very strong squad with seasoned campaigners Eshani Lokusooriya, Chamani Seneviratne, Sandamali Dolawattha and Rasangika Herath, along with Shashikala Siriwardena, Inoka Ranaweera, Udeshika Prabodhini, Dilani Manodara and Sripali Weerakkody, who were on top of their game. And there was a rising star, Chamari Atapattu. In my last stint between 2018 and 2020, we were a very young team in transition. With the right people, correct guidance and time, they will deliver results in the near future. Notably with the young group, I recommend we play lot of games at international level to gain much needed exposure and experience. We will get there soon. Other teams have already started to take note of us and are fearful of our capabilities,” explained de Silva, who now runs his academy, HDS Cricket in Queensland, Australia.
The former head coach of St Joseph’s College, Colombo and godfather of the ‘Josephian Mafia’ as once mentioned by international media, however, does not totally agree with critics who place women’s cricket in the lowest depth of standards. He admits the fact that the Sri Lanka women’s team’s overall results do not reflect the true progress made, notably during the past 18 months.
De Silva pointed out very little known facts such as improvement of the team’s average T20 scores, which hit 120 from 90, and the Women’s ODI average score progressing from 145 to 190.
“Now we have two players in the ICC top 10 allrounders list in T20 rankings, and also two in the ICC top 20 bowlers list in T20 rankings. We also have 13 players among the ICC ODI top 100 batters. We twice registered our highest T20 International score – 155 against India in 2018 and 177 against Australia in 2019. We also recorded the highest successful chase in our ODI history scoring 256 to win against India in 2018. We beat a full strength England women’s team by 10 wickets in a warm-up game in the T20 World Cup,” he added, while being highly positive on the future.
De Silva was pleased with the fact that SLC agreeing to implement a three-year plan, and mixing young talent with the experienced, and more importantly introducing development and age category based teams for girls, as one of the reasons behind the recent development, which were overshadowed by the team’s overall results at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
He highlighted the progress made at the inaugural Women’s Under-23 Asia Cup in Colombo, and the same team winning the silver medal at the South Asian Games in Nepal against a full strength Bangladesh team. In addition, de Silva mentioned about the five players from the Under-23 team being named in the T20 World Cup squad to Australia.
“This raised lot of eyebrows, but, they held their own and played to our expectations,” he pointed out.
His experience working at different levels in Sri Lanka and Australia in junior, youth and female programmes during the last decade, has given de Silva the spotter’s eye in how difference in cultures could affect athletes. De Silva was optimistic that the local women cricketers could carry forward the plan with the support of the coaching staff to reach that level of being ‘unshakable’.
“As I said earlier the future of women’s cricket is very promising and extremely good in my opinion. With the plans set, we also understood that we might have to go through hardships in the short term, but, will benefit greatly in the long run. Let’s hope that we get there very soon,” he summed up.