Sri Lanka Cricket Head Coach, Graham Ford shared his thoughts exclusively to ThePapare.com after returning to Sri Lanka from the three-match T20 series against India in India.
“Obviously, we were hoping for better, we wanted to win the series but having said that, it was a very young squad and exciting to see the energy, the attitude and the commitment. There is really a lot of talent in the group. Inexperience really showed but in time, I think we can grow and develop an exciting squad.” Ford said on the performances in India.
Ford’s main focus will be now on the upcoming Asia Cup and the World T20. He made his thoughts very clear on how he will groom his side with one eye cast on the future, “Two very important tournaments and you go away to those tournaments wanting to win them. But, certainly for me, it’s the bigger picture, looking ahead and wanting to develop this team into a team that can really make a difference down the line. Yes, we will try within we can to win these tournaments but developing these young players and making them into match-winners down the line is gonna be more important than winning these tournaments right now.”
Many ardent Sri Lankan cricket fans were shell-shocked as to we were not able to win in India after winning the first game comprehensively. Ford believes the loss against a strong Indian team would be a huge learning curve for his young side ahead of the ICC World T20 to be played in India in March-April this year, “We probably need to play spin better than we’ve been playing it. Some of these chaps have hardly played under lights and they haven’t played in front of these huge crowd which really makes you do things that you might normally don’t do. But, I think they have realized and learnt from the experiences they’ve had and the certain areas they have to work on to become better players, it’s going to be hard work all around.”
