Aussie tour, a tough call – Rumesh

Ravi LADDUWAHETTY

New Sri Lanka Interim Cricket Coach Rumesh Ratnayake believes that the forthcoming Australian tour of Sri Lanka will be a tough call for the home team and the way out would be to strategize physically, mentally and tactically.

“Man to man, we are better but the Aussies play it hard till the last ball and Sri Lanka will have to play their hearts out without getting burnt out physically, mentally and tactically”, Ratnayake told the Daily News last night.

That is the way forward for Sri Lanka for the Aussie tour and if the physical, mental and tactical issues are addressed, Sri Lanka should perform well as the team does not have a shortage of skills whether it is Tests, One Day Internationals or the T-20s, believes the new interim coach, adding that it is performances and not players those win matches, he said.

“What is important is how we counter attack when they attack”, he said.

Australia, like Sri Lanka, he said, will be on a rebuilding process like what they went through in 1985 under Kim Hughes and with Alan Border taking over, they had a dream run for the next 25 years and this team will also like to prove a point to Sri Lanka, after going down to England in the Ashes series, and Sri Lanka will also in turn want to prove a point having lost the just concluded Test and ODI series in England.

He said that he would be meeting the Sri Lanka team next Monday (25) at which the coaches would iron out the issues such as who is injured and fit and other issues.

“That will also be the first day that there will be net practices where the batting, bowling and fielding skills will be monitored,” he said.

From that, there will be the study of the videos of the foreign players and batsmen would be watching the Aussie bowlers and vice versa and the strategies would be mapped out accordingly, he said.

An Australian and Asian Cricket Council qualified level 3 coach, Ratnayake also commended the support staff - batting coach Marvan Atapattu, fast blowing coach Champaka Ramanayake and Fielding Coach Ruwan Kalpage for their efforts for the team whom he met yesterday and said that it was an honour to serve the nation at its time of need.