Bat ‘boldly’ Silverwood to his side
The new head coach of the national cricket team – Chris Silverwood – called his charges to be 'positive' and 'brave' in their batting in a bid to cut down the run-less ball frequency.
“What I'm saying is we have to bring 'smarts' into that as well. But I do want them to be positive; I want them to be brave. If we go with that attitude, the dot-ball rates will come down and the strikerates will go up, which can only be a good thing,” Silverwood told reporters, at an unusual venue of R. Premadasa International Cricket Stadium, early in the week (4).
Silverwood, along with his charges today morning, left in a Sri Lankan airlines flight for Bangladesh for a two-match Test series starting on May 15 in Chattogram.
In addition to his main capacity as the head of the coaching unit, as a former seamer, he is also the coach for the same. However, he went outside his expertise commenting on run- scoring.
“It's all about scoring runs and that's what we want the batting line-up to do. I'll try and instill some confidence into the boys so they can go out there and construct their innings and score big runs, certainly in the first innings, and give us something to bowl at. It's not rocket science”,
Silverwood explained.
The home-grown coach Naveed Nawaz who was the head coach of the Bangladesh U-19 team, returns to the island’s coaching set-up after a long-lapse.
Upon his much-anticipated return, he now travels to the same land (Bangladesh), for his first duty with the home team. However, in the run up to that, he was supposed to be roped in as the head coach.
However, the phase of filtering out the final list of candidates took a twist and a turn when suddenly Silverwood entered the scene, raising many an eyebrow.
Responding to the Sunday Times, he said he treats it only as a lovely opportunity to be the understudy of Silverwood, given his wealth of experience.
“Well, I mean, it’s a great opportunity and it’s lovely to work with someone like Chris, who has got a wealth of experience working in England, and I would take this as an opportunity,”
“Obviously, yes, I applied for the head coach role. But as I told you, I still would take this as an opportunity and as long as are in the same page and back of my mind the motive is to bring Sri Lanka cricket it’s lost glory. That is all that matters to me,” Nawaz said of his plan.
Though, the 48-year-old Nawaz’s portfolio mainly reads as an understudy to the
English coach in a long-time, it also extends to a batting coach. “Yes. That is my dual duty in my role currently, assisting Chris to execute his and Sri Lanka Cricket’s (SLC) vision. Also, looking after the batting,”
The brit being selected sprung a surprise entirely due to the part his last job with his own home team finished on a disastrous drubbing.
The preliminary plan had been to make it an – all-local – unit (across all teams) with the intention of dissolving and diluting the differences in language.
“What Chris meant was the clarity in communication. Giving and getting feedback is very important. Setting the structure for that hierarchy of communication. Chris, too, in his stay already and what we also intend to minimize is the grievances in the players”.
Apart from the official dualroles as second fiddle and batting coach to the side, he also would be playing a role beyond those.
“It’s a wide role, I have, I believe. Also, along with Chris and crew how best we could prepare for the World Cups coming up this as well as next year,” “Part of it (role) would be act as a mentor, friend and also at the same time, drilling them the technical and tactical changes they need to do for the betterment of their individual game,” Nawaz gave clarity.