To be blunt and honest, expecting this inexperienced but enthusiastic Sri Lankan side to make it to the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 was a bit over the top.
Despite having the talent needed to excel, there was obviously the lack of experience in playing big games which could have been a hurdle for the side. Despite everything and losing some key players to injuries, Sri Lanka did quite well as they managed to stun India at the Oval in their Group B clash.
At one point, Sri Lanka would have fancied their chances of a berth in the semi-finals, but a school boy error in dropping Sarfaraz Ahmed’s catch committed by Thisara Perera ultimately cost Sri Lanka dearly. Who knows, had that catch been taken, Sri Lanka could have probably been in the semis.
After returning home with a couple of points, coach Graham Ford admitted that this had been a great learning curve for his side.
“If you look at the number of caps in the India side, and the number of caps in ours, we’re vastly inexperienced, yet we outplayed them completely,” Ford said. “I do feel that with inexperience, we’re not going to get those performances every day of the week.”
“We are going to have disappointments. But as time goes by – some of our players have played 20-odd or fewer than 20 ODIs – and they get to 80, 90, 100 ODIs, these guys are going to win us a lot of games. That win was against the team everyone is talking about being favourites to win the tournament.”
Lauding the character shown by his boys, Ford said, “The character that these guys continue to show is really exciting. If we get a bit of experience among the younger players and we continue to keep that fight – that kind of spirit is really important if we’re going to build and become a highly competitive team.”
“We were trying to win, but I think there are other teams going back from the Champions Trophy with far fewer positives and far less to really get excited about than we have,” said Ford.