Sri Lanka’s Cricket’s newly contracted High Performance Coach Simon Wills sees a great challenge ahead of himself as he signs a three year contract looking to bridge the vacuum that exists in-between the domestic structure and the international stage.
The 42 year old who has served Kent Cricket for a good 23 years will be in the country for the next three years as he looks to groom a team in lieu of the 2019 Cricket World Cup that would be held in England. Speaking at the press conference held at the Sri Lanka Cricket headquarters to announce the appointment, Simon Willis mentioned that it was his passion for the game that brought him to Sri Lanka and hopes to overhaul the current cricket system to be more effective.
As a start, he would be looking to evaluate the current coaching system in the country to Asses the situation and intends looking at the grass root level. He believes that the creation of a player pathway is essential for both the player and the national contingent as it will provide an oversupply of capable consistent players who would be competing extensively for positions in the starting XI.
Photos – SLC High Performance Manager Simon Willis Press Conference
Simon believes that there is a huge gap between the domestic level cricket and the international stage in Sri Lanka and priority will be given to bridge the gap to bring in the local talent into the next level. According to his terms, a great player is one who could play all three formats.
Sri Lanka has had its greats such as Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardena in the recent past. They were players who could win matches in all three formats. It will be my challenge to create players who can be competitive across all formats
With the current structure needing a revamp, the identification of talent was primarily highlighted and should be of utmost importance, as coaches will need to look at capturing the raw talent. Willis encourages the coaches to be at matches and give their best shot at identifying the players who could be prospective talents.
Another value addition that the new coach would like to implement will be a scouting system. Currently England carries out the best scouting system and he plans on using a similar version in Sri Lanka to identify the players across segments.
Over the next few months under Willis, Sri Lanka will look to have a better structure in place for planning ahead of time so that the gaps created with players retiring will be filled and with consistent monitoring a fall back can be avoided.
Assuming duties, Willis says that it was passion that drove him here and has had an interest in the country ever since Muttiah Muralidaren joined Kent during his tenure there. In his terms Sri Lanka has been able to produce an array of unorthodox players who challenged the hard and fast rules and have proven to be successful.
