Our players are always tireless and confident and they are not worried at failures and always adopt a positive approach and this is the success of Sri Lanka women’s team said head coach Rumesh Ratnayake after maiden Asia Cup victory at Dambulla Stadium.
Their positive approach always brought success. The Asia cup victory gives them confidence. But no guarantee. We have to work hard. If this win can help to gain the world cup its no way. We have to take match by match. We make it stage by stage. We have to take it match by match.
Talking about this Asia Cup most pressure moment was semi final against Pakistan.We had a measurement it 6 out of 10 and still won the match. Our performance was poor in the semi final but we still managed to win the game against Pakistan to enter the final. I always said to my girls just enjoy the game and I don’t care that they dropped five catches or don’t care if we were 0 for 2 at start and gave them good freedom to play. This is the simple theory of coach Rumesh Ratnayake.
Vishmi’s run out in the final was due to a misunderstanding and that can happen and when we played those days we did this type of mistakes” said coach Ratnayake who was a former National paceman later became fast bowling coach and head of the Fast Bowling Academy as well as Nationl men’s team interim head coach. Rumesh Ratnayake never blamed Vishmi’s run out or Harshitha’s missed catches. He always develops players confidence and advices them to enjoy the game.
We had planned for the final and my execution was not the best but 165 target take it anyway .Anything less then 180 against India. If Chamari Athapaththu scoring it can be 190 target but after Chamari got out we had confidence at this final and they did it smartly to take the maiden title. Harshitha Samarawickrama, Kavisha Dilhari did it at the final. Anushka Sanjeewani the wicket keeper did it at the semi final and this is expected from the team. Kavisha Dilhari and Anushka Sanjeewani today came up while young Vishmi also gained more experience and not depend only on Chamari Athapaththu.
The coach making positive environmental in the dressing room from the beginning and coach explained about that with more details.
We talk about fearlessness. Through words you can bring about negativity. Negativeness can bring in fear. So even today I had to say no, not that, say it differently, re-frame it’. Small things like that certainly helped to get success.
Rumesh also explained when he took up the women’s team challenge it was in a place where a lot of negatives were spoken by players, coaches, staff, and everybody else. “What I did at the start was change the environment, which was very important. Because if you have a certain way of playing the game, if you think differently, I believe that everybody should be on the table together added coach Ratnayake.
The method of head coach Rumesh Ratnayake very well applied for the women’s team. The players always said coach Rumesh Ratnayake gives full freedom to play the game and more positive approach . Handling the women’s team not like men’ s cricket team it is very difficult but coach Rumesh Ratnayake doing very smoothly and players are very committed to do everything to go forward. Motivation of the players gives good confidence and always help in team success. How to handle the pressure situation and make plans match by match also more priority for players and these are main areas to develop in any team.
Asia cup victory not belongs to only head coach or the players as several people are behind the success. The coach Ratnayake always said about supporting staff. Assistant coach Tharindu Perera, batting coach Duminda Perera, fielding coach Carman Mapatuna, Trainer Dharshana Weerasinghe, Physio and important role of Manager Rear Admiral Nishantha de Silva and selection committee headed by Hemantha Devapriya gave full support to the team while Sri Lanka Cricket always provides all facilities to uplift the team to higher level and credit should go to all for team success.
Dhammika Ratnaweera REPORTING FROM DAMBULLA