Coach Gunawardene critical of Sri Lanka A batsmen

Sri Lanka A head coach Avishka Gunawardene lamented the lack of big scores from the batsmen, after the side lost all four games in the A-team tri-series involving Pakistan and hosts England Lions.

Sri Lanka A passed 255 only once on good batting surfaces, with Angelo Perera’s 69 being their highest individual score in the tournament. In contrast, Lions piled up runs and misery on Sri Lanka A, including a total of 425 for 1, which was set up by Ben Duckett’s unbeaten 220 not out, in the sixth match.

“The biggest disappointment for me was not England Lions scoring 300 or 400 against us but that none of our batsmen used the conditions to get a big hundred,” Gunawardene said. “I thought that was the ideal opportunity for the batsmen. You don’t get better tracks even in Sri Lanka. The ball came nicely onto the bat and there wasn’t much movement, but our batsmen didn’t make use of that opportunity.”

Besides Angelo, Niroshan Dickwella and Bhanuka Rajapaksa got to fifties, but could not convert it into a big score. Gunawardene held temperament responsible for batsmen not building on starts. He also said the batsmen need to learn the art of pacing an innings from domestic cricket.

“They will get a 30, 40 or a 50 and throw it away. It’s all to do with their mindset nothing wrong with their talent,” Gunawardene said. “Even the Pakistan A coach said that we had so much of talent but something was not right, which I also agree. The batsmen will have to start learning how to play long innings in domestic cricket. They should know how to build an innings, how to pace an innings, these are little things that our batsmen need to learn and develop and all of them comes from playing domestic cricket.”

Gunawardene lauded Lions’ dominant batting line-up, which dictated the series. Five of …

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