“Don’t see it as decline of Sri Lanka cricket”: Assistant coach Naveed Nawaz

Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India]: Assistant coach Naveed Nawaz doesn’t feel that Sri Lanka cricket is going through a decline but their recent performance is a cause of concern after their 302-run defeat to India in the ongoing World Cup on Thursday at the Wankhede Stadium.

This was the second time Sri Lanka were restricted to a paltry score by India’s lethal pace set-up. Last month in the Asia Cup final, Mohammed Siraj’s dream spell rattled their entire batting set-up as India went on to clinch the victory.

On the eve of the clash head coach Chris Silverwood felt that the defeat would motivate the team to perform better against the Men in Blue. But Mohammed Shami’s breathtaking display with the ball left them stunned. Naveed addressed Sri Lanka’s recent struggle and feels that the young squad is still in the learning phase.

“Well, it’s a cause of concern for sure, but I don’t see it as the decline of Sri Lanka cricket. We’ve got a young group of players; we’ve got only a few guys who have played over 100 ODIs here in this group as well.

So, I think it’s a rebuilding stage where we are, a couple of new players are still learning the trade I would say. So, we have some exciting prospects back home and also in this group and I hope they’ll take every opportunity to learn from the mistakes done and move forward and do well in the future. So that’s the only hope that we have,” Naveed said in the post-match press conference.

With this defeat, Sri Lanka are more or less out of the race for the semi-final spot. Naveed laid down the next objective that they are looking to achieve in their remaining games.

“I think it’s going to be important that we finish above the eight to qualify for the Champions Trophy. So, like they say, we’ve got to find a factor to motivate the boys and keep them alive because we had the same issue in June when we played the World Cup qualifiers.

So, there was no guarantee when we went into Zimbabwe to qualify for the World Cup. We had to win all our games and as well we came to the finals to qualify for this tournament. So, I guess we’ve crossed that barrier and we’ve got a pretty young team as I told you before.

So, we will get back and we will get the boys motivated and get back in and somehow see what we can do in the next two games, try, and bring out our best cricket,” Naveed added.