Sri Lanka’s new head cricket coach, Paul Farbrace said that he has joined Sri Lanka cricket at an exciting time. Farbrace replaced Graham Ford recently when the latter decided to leave at the conclusion of his two-year term.
“It’s really encouraging to see new players coming through,” Farbrace was quoted as saying by cricinfo.com.
“Suranga Lakmal was starting to get involved when I was here last time. I’m really pleased to see how he has developed. Shaminda Eranga is fantastic – he really does look a quality bowler.
Nuwan Pradeep was someone who was around when I was here and he was working hard on his game then. To see those three guys, with Vishwa Fernando as well, you’ve got some very talented youngish fast bowlers. Not a lot of experience in terms of international cricket, but it’s quite exciting to see there’s some pace bowling coming through.
“From a batting point of view, Kithuruwan Vithanage played very well for his hundred in Dhaka – I really like the look of him. Kaushal Silva was someone who was scoring lots and lots of first-class runs. He was playing for the A team last time he was here. I worked with him on his keeping, so I know him pretty well. It’s really nice to see the likes of him getting the opportunity to play the longer form, just on the back of his performance and hard work. Everyone was delighted when he got his hundred.
Dimuth Karunaratne looks a good player. He’s played nicely and is due a good score pretty soon, because he does the hard work and gets in. Right the way through, there’s a lot of talent.”
Farbrace appointed on January 1, 2014 and his appointment come ahead of several major challenges. “Our first big thing is obviously the Asia Cup – we want to compete and do well in that. Next is the World Twenty20, which is a format in which Sri Lanka are the No. 1 team in the world, and that’s because they’ve earned the right to be the top team in 20-overs cricket.
We are going into that competition full of confidence. We’ve got four games at Chittagong, and conditions there will hopefully be advantageous for us. After this series our focus will be on those tournaments with a continual eye towards the World Cup in 2015,” website reported.
“The one-day games in England will also give us an idea of how and where we need to keep working for World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, because conditions will be quite similar. The key thing is we’ve got to find our best 15 players. We’ve got to know what combinations are going to work for us.”
