Chris Silverwood, the head coach of Sri Lanka, lamented his team’s bowlers’ lack of composure following their 67-run defeat to India in the opening ODI in Guwahati. Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill took the initiative for the hosts with a 143-run partnership in only 19.4 overs after Sri Lanka had put India in after winning the toss.
Then, Virat Kohli produced his 45th ODI century to lead India to a formidable 373 for 7. Silverwood said after the game that “clearly, we didn’t get off to the best start.” If I must be brutally honest, I must admit that we occasionally lacked discipline in the opening 10 overs, which allowed India to get off to a strong start.
This field yields excellent scores. India was aware that they needed to start strong, thus we gave them the opportunity to do so.” Since they gained momentum as a result, we had to continually push back in an effort to slow them down.
And I believe we did it for a while. However, it can be challenging to halt a class batting lineup like India’s.” Additionally, Sri Lanka’s fielding was deemed inadequate. They twice lost Kohli, once on 52 and once on 81. He continued and scored 113 runs in just 87 balls.
The dropped catches, according to Silverwood, “were obviously expensive. And everyone is aware that if a player of Virat’s calibre was given the chance, he would seize it. And today, he did just that.
Yes, that was a tremendous knock, but you never know whether we would have taken advantage of the opportunities he presented. In response, Sri Lanka was 206 for 8 at one point, but their skipper Dasun Shanaka and Kasun Rajitha put up 100 runs in an unbroken ninth-wicket stand to turn the score around.
Shanaka finished with a perfect 108, but his effort could only narrow the defeat gap. I believe he [Shanaka] has done himself a world of good, said Silverwood. He is now well-known in the industry.
After understanding how dynamic a player he is, the [IPL] teams will certainly be assessing him (Shanaka was not purchased during the auction). He has great ball striking ability, so maybe he may get an opportunity.
We don’t, in my opinion, just rely on Dasun. He is plainly glowing right now since he is in excellent shape. You can see that Pathum scored runs today as well. He and Dhananjaya’s collaboration, in my opinion, provided us some impetus at the time.
I am thus not very concerned about that. It goes without saying that we need them to put their hands up more often, especially on such strong tracks as this, to put up that fight and form alliances. Thus, it’s a continual effort.