Sri Lankan under-19 team poor performances in the Asia Cup has come in for criticism by cricketing experts. They beat Japan but unfortunately lost to UAE and Bangladesh and knocked out from the semi finals and returned home yesterday.
UAE and Bangladesh entered the semi finals and UAE for the first time got this great opportunity for their country. Sri Lanka team led by Sineth Jayawardena had a poor record especially in batting and this is an eye opener before the world cup which will commence next month in South Africa.
Sri Lanka Cricket already planned to change junior selectors as well as senior selectors and Duminda Wickramasinghe who was the Chairman in 2014-15 once again tipped to return as Chairman of junior selection committee.
The former Junior selection committee Chairman Ranjith Madurusinghe who occupied this post for more than five years stepped down from this post just before the World Cup and Sri Lanka teams poor performance will result in changing of the selectors. Waruna Waragoda and S.H.U Karnian are the other two junior selection committee members while provincial junior selectors also joined them for team selections.
The new junior selectors have big responsibility before the World Cup in South Africa.
Sri Lanka under 19 team did good job against West Indies and Pakistan before this Asia Cup while new spin coach Sachith Pathirana was added for the supporting staff last moment to focus on next world cup. Pathirana is no stranger for under 19 team as he earlier held same position at last World Cup in West Indies captained by Dunith Wellalage.
However talented players like Supun Waduge was not among the original 15 member squad and he was with the Asia Cup team as travel reserve and several school players who performed well at the recent school season were not considered for the selections and same squad Sri Lanka selectors used for the recent tours Sri Lanka team has to go South Africa for under-19 World Cup and our team has to get ready by rectifying. their mistakes.
Sri Lanka cricket giving all infrastructure facilities for National team but the way they played at Asia Cup was never expected. Lost to UAE for the first time put big pressure and they failed to live upto expectations during this Asia Cup. Scoring 200, 220 is not enough to win matches at this level. If batters couldn’t make big score bowlers couldn’t make put pressure for any opponent team and this happened at Asia Cup and players should realize this. Players like Sineth Jayawardena, Dinura Kalupahana and Malsha Tharupathi could not play to their potential at the Asia Cup while opener Pulindu Perera was also not among the runs.
Spinners failed to impress and fielding was not up to standard. If new selectors and coaches added to the team couldn’t make big change players should change their attitude and focus more on cricket said a cricket expert. Motivator and Psychologist are needed for Sri Lanka teams to improve the mentality of the players.
