INDIA TOUR OF SRI LANKA, 2017

Painful to lose so badly at home: Jayasuriya

by Rex Clementine • Published on

The home series whitewash was a painful blow to Sri Lanka's chairman of selectors © Getty

Sanath Jayasuriya, Sri Lanka's chairman of selectors, has spoken about the pain of being whitewashed at home after India handed a 3-0 drubbing in the Test series after winning the third and final Test at the Pallekele in Kandy by an innings and 171 runs inside three days.

Sri Lanka were shot out for scores of 135 and 181 to suffer their fifth heaviest Test defeat on Monday (August 14) and the worst home series loss ever. "It is very painful for me," Jayasuriya told Cricbuzz, whose career-best 340 (Tests) and 189 (ODIs) came against India. "Losing a home series is always tough and especially to lose in this fashion. We have done well against India at home over the years and we need to find a way out of this now."The players are down at the moment and we need to support them and give confidence. It's up to them then to come up with answers and more importantly how fast can they come up with those answers. The coaching staff needs to come up with plans as to how we can address this issue," he noted.

Often Sri Lanka's first-class cricket is blamed for not being able to prepare the players for tougher challenges. Opener Dimuth Karunaratne and fast bowling coach Chaminda Vaas both highlighted the deficiencies of first-class cricket during the current series. Sri Lanka has 24 club teams competing in the first-class tournament, which is of three days' duration.

"No doubt there's a big gap between club and international cricket. We address that gap during our training sessions, but that's not the long-term solution," Jayasuriya said.

Sri Lanka did have a highly competitive Inter-Provincial Tournament comprising five teams chosen from the club structure, but the competition was abandoned sometime back. Former greats Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have urged to restart the Inter-Provincial competition.

"We need to promote the Provincial tournament no doubt. SLC President Thilanga Sumathipala is very keen on starting the Provincial Competition and already we have conducted an Under-23 Provincial tournament, which was highly competitive," noted Jayasuriya. "But the problem is once it is started, whoever who is in administration needs to continue it. Like we did with the one-day tournament where we had provincial teams competing, we need to get the ball rolling with first-class cricket as well. Personally, I will be pushing for it and I know the President is pushing for it as well. It will be a very competitive competition comprising four to five teams."

Sri Lanka's have a busy calendar this year and the only possibility to conduct the Inter-Provincial tournament is in 2018. Jayasuriya also confirmed that Sri Lanka will have a head coach ahead of the series against Pakistan which gets underway in September. Since Graham Ford vacated the position, former South African wicketkeeper Nic Pothas has done the job on an interim basis.

"They are in the process of finalizing the head coach. We need to do it soon. We need to pick someone who is clever and someone who has got the patience to work with the young team," Jayasuriya said.

© Cricbuzz

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