“We wanted to look after young cricketers and also have a plan to make emerging squad to groom them, said Sri Lankan consultant coach Mahela Jayawardena in an interview with the “Daily News” yesterday.
Jayawardena who is doing his work as a consultant coach to the National teams is very busy with the cricket development activities and his idea is to make good system to produce talented cricketers.
The Cricket Technical Advisory Committee headed by Aravinda de Silva and it’s members Muttiah Muralitharan and Kumara Sangakkara always work together with Jayawardena for this development activities and their plan is to make good cricket structure with high competition level.
The former Sri Lankan skipper Jayawardena always very concerned about the young cricketers and he got chance to work closely with the National under 19 team during the under 19 World Cup tournament in West Indies.
He further said we wanted to get youngsters into the system in a proper way and the most important thing is to guide them at this stage. Most of the Sri Lankan youth team members have to involve with school matches after return home and others can get a chance to play club cricket.
In addition we have plan to conduct under 25 cricket tournament similar to the National Super League tournament from club level and that is more important to young players.
“We knew in between the 20-23 age limit a lot of players who left from the schools are waiting to play more matches and we have to focus on them and very keen to conduct under 25 tournament with more competitive level, added Jayawardena. We also have an idea to make more International cricket matches for the Development squad as well as Sri Lanka ‘A’ side which is always more helpful to make a strong second string team.
The consultant coach Jayawardena also pointed out National Under 19 team performances at the Under 19 World Cup tournament. We can’t be highly satisfied with their performances and it’s 50-50 Obviously I would have liked to have ended up in a higher position than sixth.
They have the talent and ability to do it, especially during this Global Pandemic the players couldn’t play more matches before the World Cup and their training also limited with this situation.
The match exposure is more important for them. We saw Skipper Dunith Wellalage who led the team very well and he showed his potential very well and others have to build up and focus more on this level. They did few mistakes and lost the quarter final but finally they finished with sixth place in the tournament.
The players and coaching staff worked hard during the tournament and we appreciate all of them. The most important thing is to protect these youngsters and give correct guidance to build up their career, said Jayawardena.
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