De Silva also stated that certificates and trophies should not be the basis to measure the talent. He was of the view that mental stability of a sportsman plays a vital role in bringing out his best while being consistent.
“As coaches we have to boost players’ self confidence,” said De Silva who heads the SLC Cricket Committee.
The conference was a part of SLC’s program to train cricket coaches islandwide systematically in order to produce top cricketers.
Former Test captain and a solid middle-order batsman Hashan Tillakaratne and former all-rounder Upul Chandana who was an outstanding fielder during his playing days have joined hands with SLC’s Skill Development Program which is run under the supervision of High Performance Manager Simon Willis, the former Kent coach.
Willis said that Sri Lanka has lot of talented youngsters and this development program has identified 20 fast bowlers to be trained under a long term plan.
“Our plan is to have a back up to be used as the requirement of the national side,” said Willis.
Tillakaratne will serve as an assistant batting coach for Sri Lanka ‘A’ team and the Development squad and also help to uplift the batting standards at provincial and district levels.
Chandana will look after the bowling at provincial and district levels.
Commenting on the recruitment of Tillakaratne and Chandana, De Silva said that SLC has launched a long term program to develop cricket where two former great cricketers have joined to educate and share their vast knowledge with young cricketers.
“We are privileged to have our finest fast bowler Chaminda Vaas as the fast bowling coach of the national team and hopefully bring in former greats Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Asanka Gurusingha and incomparable Muthiah Muralitharan in the future,” De Silva said.
Head coach Graham Ford said, “The coaches training program is a milestone in developing Sri Lanka cricket. Apart from strengthening batting skills of batsmen we have to focus on developing batting of spinners who come as tail-enders. Strengthening the lower order will greatly benefit in the Test format.
“In teams like Australia and England the lower order batsmen do a great job to evade defeat. Cricket history has proved that many times surviving from the last ball of the penultimate day will have a great impact on the fate of the match on the final day.”
