Nawaz: Young Sri Lanka have more World Cups in them

Sri Lanka's poor performance in the World Cup is not part of a wider decline of Sri Lanka cricket, their batting coach Naveed Nawaz said. This is a group, he said, that's pretty young, and has more World Cups in them.

And perhaps there is some truth to the latter statement especially. Of the 11 that took the field on Thursday, only four are over 30. And even among those over 30, it is not inconceivable that the likes of Kasun Rajitha (30), and Dushmantha Chameera (31), might be around for another ODI World Cup cycle.

"Well, it's a cause of concern for sure, but I don't see it as the decline of Sri Lanka cricket," said Nawaz. "We've got a young group of players; we've got only a few guys who have played over 100 ODIs here in this group as well. So, I think it's a rebuilding stage where we are, a couple of new players are still learning the trade, I would say."

There has been a marked decline for some time, however, since the era in which Sri Lanka was arguably the best big-tournament team around. Between 2007 and 2014, Sri Lanka made five global finals, winning the last of those (the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh). In addition, they made two other major semi-finals.

Since 2015, however, Sri Lanka have not made a global semi-final at all, in seven attempts. They had to qualify to even play at this World Cup. Sri Lanka's goal in their two remaining matches, would be to qualify for the next big ODI event.

"I think it's going to be important that we finish above the eight to qualify for Champions Trophy [in 2025]. We've got to find a factor to motivate the boys and keep them alive because we had the same issue in June when we played the World Cup Qualifier. There was no guarantee when we went into Zimbabwe to qualify for the World Cup."

While Nawaz conceded that some of the responsibility to prepare players for the kind of bowling India sent down to Sri Lanka rested with the coaching staff, he also suggested Sri Lanka's batters had not applied themselves. Their 55 all out was the third occasion in which Sri Lanka have failed to reach triple figures against India this year.

"The bowlers bowled incredibly well and we have to give them credit," he said. "But we have to take the responsibility for how it turned out. In the difficult situations, there was no one willing to push the game deep and handle it. Angelo [Mathews] showed signs of doing that, but others gave away their wickets early. In this tournament we've scored 300, 340 - scores like that, against good bowlers. But we did have shortcomings in our fighting qualities today."