Sri Lanka’s head coach Chris Silverwood said that skipper Dasun Shanaka has now put himself in the focus of IPL franchises with his stunning performance on the ongoing tour of India.
Shanaka first made everyone talk about him with his brilliant performance in the T20I series, where he recorded the scores of 45 off 27 balls, 56* off 22 balls, and 23 off 17 balls against India. The star all-rounder carried his form into the ongoing ODI series as well.
Shanaka, batting at No 6, played some counter-attacking shots to notch up his second ODI ton (108* off 88 balls) to help Sri Lanka avoid the massive defeat while chasing 374 for victory in the first ODI on Guwahati.
However, Sri Lanka lost the match by 67 runs, but Shanaka won many hearts, and Silverwood hopes he will get an IPL contract in the future despite going unsold at the IPL 2023 auction.
Chris Silverwood said at the post-match press conference in Guwahati: “I think he (Shanaka) has done himself a world of good. He has put himself in the marketplace now. I am sure the (IPL) franchises will be looking at him and seeing how dynamic a cricketer he is. He is a great striker of the ball, so hopefully, he will get an opportunity.”
On being asked if Sri Lanka were over-reliant on Shanaka, the head coach said: “I don’t think we rely (only) on Dasun. He is in a great vein of form at the moment, so obviously he is shining.”
He continued, “If you look, we had Pathum (Nissanka) also score runs today. I thought the partnership between him and Dhananjaya (de Silva) gave us some momentum when they were together. We have seen over a period of time that each individual at times has put their hands up and been counted.
So, I am not overly worried about that. Obviously, we need them to put their hands up more, especially on very good tracks like this, to put that fight up, to build partnerships. So that’s a constant work.”
Silverwood rued the two dropped catches by Virat Kohli, who went on to smash a brilliant century in the match. He also felt Sri Lanka’s bowling lacked discipline in the first ODI against India.
The Sri Lankan coach said, “Obviously, we didn’t get off to the best start,” Silverwood said after the match. If I have to be brutally honest, our discipline in the first ten overs was lacking at times, and we allowed India to get off to a good start. This is a high-scoring ground. India knew that they had to get off to a good start and we allowed them to do that.”
Silverwood added, “They gained momentum from that and we had to push back all the time to try to put the brakes on. And I think we did that for a period of time. But when you have a class batting line-up as India have, then it’s difficult to stop them.”
He signed off by saying on his team’s poor fielding, “Yeah, obviously they were costly. Moments like that are very critical in a game like this — we knew it was going to be a high-scoring one. And we all know if you give a player of Virat’s calibre opportunities, he would take it. And that’s exactly what he did today. And we all know if you give a player of Virat’s calibre opportunities, he would take it. And that’s exactly what he did today.”
(With PTI Inputs)
