Rex Clementine, Island, 10 March 2018, where the title is “Hatu has changed the mindset of players – Ratnayake,”
Sri Lanka’s Fast Bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake credited his former team mate and Head Coach Chandika Hathurusingha for changing the fortunes of the national cricket team. After a tough 2017, under Hathurusingha, Sri Lanka did quite well in Bangladesh recording series wins across all three formats and started off the Nidahas Trophy campaign with a comprehensive win over India on Tuesday.
Ratnayake credited Hathurusingha’s approach to the game. “As I always say talent was aplenty in our team, it’s just that the mindset of the boys. I think coach Hathu has come in, addressed that area and has changed their mindset by letting them do things on their own,” Ratnayake told journalists.
“It’s all about smart options, I think he lets people take smart options and even if you fail, he will say ‘well, that was good enough, let’s try again next time’. For an example, you tell a boy to go and play some shots but if he gets out you can’t ask him ‘why did you play that shot?’ So he’s a man of his word,” Ratnayake added.
Elaborating on playing smart cricket, Ratnayake said that the Head Coach has been urging the players to be practical. “It’s about playing smart. According to the situation if there needs to be change in the strike and going to the other side that’s what we have to do. Then, let’s say if there are two balls to score 10 runs, how we go about it. We’re talking about smart options taken and evaluate those smart options at the end of the day.”
Sri Lanka take on Bangladesh today in their second game of the competition and Ratnayake expected the tourists to fight back after suffering a six-wicket defeat at the hands of India on Thursday. “They’re a strong side. They are a team which has beaten all teams in Bangladesh. They beat us in Sri Lanka. So they’re a strong team which has several guys with potential to do extremely well.”
He also stressed on a few areas that his team needed to work on. “We still need to look at our bowling. I personally thought we gave 15 runs too many against India. We have scrutinized that a little bit and we’ve also looked at instances when an Indian went off for a big over, how well did they come back as bowlers. “