UTV | COLOMBO – Sri Lanka suffered a crushing 8-wicket loss to India in the deciding ODI at Visakhapatnam on Sunday (17), ending their horror year in ODIs in 2017 where they have lost 23 out of 29 ODIs, including three 5-0 whitewashes.
Later Sri Lanka cricket team coach Nic Pothas rued the inability of the team to learn quickly from their mistakes.
“In ODIs, the same errors keep happening. We keep crossing the street and getting run over by the same bus over and over. But if you keep making the same mistakes, you can’t keep living,” Pothas said.
Sri Lanka had a chance to secure their maiden ODI bilateral series win in India and they looked good for a big score with Upul Tharanga batting on 95 not out.
However, Kuldeep Yadav changed the course of the match by getting Tharanga stumped and removing Niroshan Dickwella for 8 in the same over.
Following Kuldeep’s double-strike, Sri Lanka lost wickets at regular intervals and they lost their last 8 wickets for just 55 runs to be bowled out for a below-par score.
“We tried to get as many players as possible who are good players of spin into the squad. If you want to play India, you want to have players who can play spin in the middle order. Unfortunately, we lost two wickets in one over and that put us behind,” Pothas said.
Pothas will hand over the coaching duties to Chandika Hathurusingha after the end of the series and he said it will be exciting to have the former Bangladesh coach on board.
When asked about what his role in the Sri Lankan set-up will be after the arrival of Hathurusingha, Pothas said he had not gotten any official communication from the Board.
