Sri Lanka head coach Mickey Arthur said that his coaching staff are utilising the time off from cricket to reflect on the first three months of their tenure as well as on recalibrating the plans for future series.
“We are using this time to reflect on the first three months of our tenure and recalibrate our individual and team plans going forward to the very important series that we have coming up later in the year,” said Arthur in an interview with SLC media on Sunday, 5 April.
“We have been very happy with the improvement and willingness from the players to buy into the structure, work ethic, levels of preparation and goals that we have set the team in all formats,” he added.
“We as a group want to stay ahead of the pack and be the leaders not the followers in terms of coaching trends around the world”
Arthur took up the coaching role with Sri Lanka in December 2019, ahead of the team’s two-Test series in Pakistan, which the hosts won 1-0. Following that tour, Sri Lanka lost T20I series in India, won Test series in Zimbabwe before hosting West Indies for a white-ball contest. Sri Lanka swept the ODI leg of the series while West Indies won the two T20Is.
“This isolation period is giving us as coaching staff a time to reflect as well on the player plans, roles and goals that we have set for ourselves as a group,” Arthur said. “We are also looking at trends from around the world and analyzing all the opposition that we are going to play against over the next year. We as a group want to stay ahead of the pack and be the leaders not the followers in terms of coaching trends around the world.”
Sri Lanka were in the middle of their preparation for a home series against England when the current world situation took hold, forcing the series to be called off. Arthur expressed disappointment, saying this was the time when his team had started to grow under him and also had “worked out a brand”.
“It was really disappointing not playing the Test series against England although this will be played at a later date. I felt that our Test team grew so much on our tour of Zimbabwe … this tour was very tough and we had to play very disciplined cricket to win the series because of the conditions that we were presented with over there,” he continued.
“We had just worked out a brand that we knew would be successful against all teams and I just hope that the momentum that we had built up will not be lost with our test team when we start up again … we have some very realistic goals with our Test team and believe that we have now the players and game plans to have success both at home and abroad in the future.”
COURTESY: ICC
