Sri Lanka registered a consolation three-wicket victory over India in the third and final ODI at R.Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on Friday (July 23).
The hosts might have conceded the 50-over series 2-1, but head coach Mickey Arthur feels his team is improving fast and needs to have depth in batting as they gear up for the T20I series, starting July 25.
"We are creating depths across all the departments now. We just have to get that little bit of consistency and that same depth into our batting," Arthur said at a virtual pre-match press conference on the eve of the first T20I.
"For numerous reasons we never seem to put our best batting line up out there. It is being about creating depth for me, but also trying to be consistent. Giving guys clear roles but then allowing them to go out and playing with freedom. We saw a really good example of that in Charith (Asalanka) the other night," he added.
"The growth I have seen in these players has been fantastic and the growth comes from giving them confidence and giving them that consistency that they are going to play. We will see the rewards of that in the future for sure," he noted.
Arthur believes Dasun Shanaka and company learned a "massive amount" from the ODI series against India.
"We are right at the embryonic stage of this journey and it is about us playing against ourselves every-day we go out on the ground. We have got benchmarks, which we want to meet in every game.
"We are measuring ourselves and the progression in terms of those KPIs has been outstanding. We are getting better and better," he remarked.
According to the South African, Sri Lanka's white-ball cricket needed some reforms and he termed the victory against India in the last ODI as a "great win".
"We were struggling, our white ball cricket was going nowhere. We were ranked eight or nine in the world and we needed some reforms and change with that.
"We needed to try and rebuild the team, we needed to look at a team we could take forward all the way to the 2023 World Cup and have a side ready at that point. And that is why we had that change, was to bring some young fresh faces in, see what they can do but also give them an opportunity to perform," he explained.
"And I think, we are getting there, we have got a long way to go. The win last night was great and we got very close the game before and that just shows continued improvement," he concluded.
(With PTI inputs)
