Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India] : Sri Lanka head coach Chris Silverwood was “frustrated” due to the fielding performance of the players throughout the tournament.
Sri Lanka’s World Cup ended on a disappointing note as they registered only two victories and lost seven times. Their five-wicket defeat to New Zealand on Thursday reflected their struggling batting. But Silverwood pointed out dropped catches as one of the major reasons that has hampered Sri Lanka throughout the tournament.
During Sri Lanka’s clash against India, the Lions dropped catches of Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill in the powerplay which played a major reason in their downfall. Overall they have dropped more catches than almost any other team this tournament, with their completed catch percentage down to 70.21 per cent – the worst performance by any team.
“Yeah, it’s frustrating because I mean certain catches that we’ve put down during this tournament have cost us. It’s again something that we’re constantly working on. Our fielding coach is constantly working on that and trying to obviously push the standards higher. But clearly there’s still work to be done as well. I mean, we are getting ourselves in positions where there’s more catches coming our way. We’ve been brave and going for half chances more, but clearly, we have to start hanging on to these if we want to start turning games in our favour,” Silverwood said in the post-match press conference.
Silverwood also pointed out that consistency has been one factor that has hampered their progress in the ongoing World Cup even though they played good cricket according to the head coach.
“I think inconsistency. I think it would be fair to use that word. I think we’ve played some good cricket along the way, and I think we’ll look back on certain games and rue missed opportunities, to be honest. There has been certain games during this campaign that if we’d have taken the opportunities that were put our way, this could have looked a lot different. But the fact is that we have been inconsistent and it’s something that we’ve been working on for a long time and something we need to continue working on. So, yeah, I think inconsistent is a word we can use,” Silverwood added.