By Srian Obeyesekere

Sri Lanka Head Coach, Chris Silverwood has in no uncertain terms spelt out that the team has to come out of the inconsistency cocoon that led to its recent world cup debacle.

“I think inconsistency,” Chris Silverwood reportedly stated. “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 have 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.”

Silverwood, the former England fast bowler, who took over the coaching reins from Chandika Hathurisinghe in April 2022 starting with the away tour versus Bangladesh, is known to have made to point blank clear to particularly the Lankan top order batsmen to play attacking, but sensible cricket.

However, a failure to gel to the head coach’s stated guideline has been a nagging setback down the line that has not seen the best of summers following the failure for automatic world cup qualification as well as defeats in two warm-ups to Bangladesh and Afghanistan leading to the world cup debacle.