A humiliating 302-run defeat in opposition to India ended Sri Lanka’s hopes of reaching the World Cup semifinals, however batting coach Naveed Nawaz believes the facet should rebuild and end within the prime eight to safe a Champions Trophy berth in 2025.
“It’s going to be important that we finish within the top-eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy. We got to find a factor to motivate the boys. We had the same issue in June, when we played the World Cup qualifier. There was no guarantee when we went to Zimbabwe that we would qualify for the tournament, we had to win all our games to come here. We have crossed that barrier,” Nawaz stated.
“We have got a pretty young team, so we will get back and get the boys motivated…”
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Over the previous few years, issues haven’t been rosy for Sri Lanka, particularly in ODIs. It went right down to India within the Asia Cup closing by 10 wickets in September and on the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday, the facet suffered its largest defeat within the World Cup.
But Nawaz doesn’t see it as a decline in Sri Lankan cricket. “It’s a cause of concern for sure, but I don’t see it as a decline of Sri Lanka cricket. We have a young group of players, there are only a few who have played 100 matches, so we are in a rebuilding stage,” he stated.
“A couple of new players are still learning the trade. So, we have some exciting prospects back home and also in this group and I hope they’ll take every opportunity to learn from the mistakes done and move forward and do well in the future. So that’s the only hope that we have…” he stated, making it clear that the teaching workers will take ‘100 per cent responsibility’ for a dismal outing.
Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com
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