Interim head coach Nic Pothas praised the Indian cricket team comparing them to New Zealand’s mighty rugby side All-Blacks and said that Sri Lanka had a lot to learn from them.
“You look at their team and they are very All-Black-like. There’s a lot of respect for the facilities, there’s a lot of respect for the opposition. They are very ruthless in the way they go about their work. Their work-ethic is immense. They are what a lot of teams aspire to be. The most important thing for us is learning from our mistakes, but most importantly, learning from them,” said South African Pothas after Sri Lanka had lost the one-off T20 international to India at the R Premadasa Stadium on Wednesday.
That loss followed 3-0 and 5-0 whitewashes at the hands of India in the Test and ODI series.
Comparing the two teams Pothas said, “First and foremost we’ve got to put everything in perspective, because it’s very easy to look at things at face value. We’re a side that’s developing. They are a side that is complete. You’ve got to look at that, initially. You’ve got to look at the quality they have in that side. It’s a side with immense quality. It’s always going to be tough to compete against them, or to try and beat them.
“We just needed to compete a little bit more. I think it would be wrong of us not to learn off them. They do so many things very well. Most of them are just basics. You see how Virat (Kohli) runs between the wickets. You see the respect he commands on the field as a leader. He’s a role model to people and he pulls people with him. When you look at the way they go about their work and the culture that Virat has created within that team, it’s very, very impressive. I’m sure it’s a great compliment to him, but it’s a fact,” he said.
Pothas said that he has been in conversation with the Indian team physio Patrick Farhart over dinner and coffee during the tour and learnt quite a lot from him how the Indian team is jelling as a unit.
“Patrick’s a very close friend of mine, so I’ve spoken to him. These guys are very busy the same as we are, so to encroach on their leisure time – I don’t want to do that. But I do get all the information I’m looking for in the questions I’m asking from Paddy. They aren’t surprising answers. It’s just what you expect. But it is impressive. Even if you are aware of what’s going on with their team, when you hear how it actually works, it’s very impressive. It’s not rocket science, but it’s a discipline that is required across the board,” said Pothas.
On the subject of the number of injuries suffered by the Sri Lankan team Pothas said the figure was an acceptable rate compared to teams around the world.
“Talking to Paddy there’s an acceptable number, which is about 15-20% of your squad. That’s an acceptable injury rate, and we’re well within that rate,” said Pothas. “It looks like we have a heap of injuries but we’re well within the rate. A lot of the injuries are just due to a spike in workload. A lot of guys work at the HPC (High Performance Centre) and they have good programs. Once they come and join us, that spike in workload tests a few players. We just have to look at that, but we’re within the acceptable injury rate.”
Pothas accepted the fact that the players who replace the injured will not be good as them.
“That’s true of any sport anywhere in the world. The guy that’s in the team is in better form or is a player of better quality, at that point in time. The person coming in very often is not going to be in the same league as the guy who got injured. That’s the nature of sport around the world. What we’re doing now is to try and create (a) a quality within the team and (b) a depth, so that when players do get injured, the people that come in can do a job for us.”
Commenting on the string of losses the Sri Lanka team has undergone in the past few months Pothas said, “That’s a fact if you look at it on paper. If you take a young team to South Africa where they prepared the conditions to suit themselves, it’s going to be very, very tough over there. A lot of good things were done in South Africa. Yes the results didn’t go our way.
“At some point you’ve got to put your hand up and say: “Look, this is the string of results. We need to look forward and get better.” We’ve spoken about the consistency. We’ve got a lot of good players in this team. It’s just a matter of giving them the confidence and the belief that they are very good players and will become world-class players. I think it’s a little bit of give from the coaching side and there’s a little bit of give to come from the players’ side, to move forward,” he said.
Pothas said that Sri Lanka was about 15 runs short on the runs they scored especially playing a side like India. “It was a competitive total. But if you looked at how we played, we were probably 15 short of what we could have got on that wicket. We probably had a few too many little cameos that we could have dragged on a little bit longer. 170 is probably competitive but when you play a team of such quality, you’re going to have to be very good in the field and with the ball to try and stop that being scored.”
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