Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli took India cruising past the winning line in the first ODI. (Source: PTI)
Down and out, Sri Lanka have turned to India to manage transition and ensure revival. According to a Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) source, an informal discussion already happened at the board level on the sidelines of the Asian Cricket Council meeting in Colombo earlier this month. Now Virat Kohli has said he expects a conversation to happen between the two teams at the end of the ongoing tour.
Sri Lanka haven’t won a bilateral ODI series against a higher-ranked team since 2015. They have lost 12 of their last 16 ODIs, including a home series against Zimbabwe this year. “Those things (interaction between the two teams) may happen after the competitive zone is over and (we are) done with the series. I think that will happen after the 6th, if it has to happen from their end I presume. But look it is difficult for any team going through transition. The interaction I presume will happen after the tour,” Kohli said. Before that Sri Lanka coach Nic Pothas had said: “We are in a position at the moment that England, India, Australia all have found themselves in. We have learnt from them and spoken to them…”
Kohli gave a low-down of the turnaround. “One thing that we decided to do as a team was (to) take more responsibility and ownership of what we do on the field, playing for the country. We just needed to change our mindset. It didn’t matter if we were playing against a side that has played 60 Tests each, if we are mentally more prepared than them, then we are in a better position to win,” he said.
“So we decided to put our heads in that zone where experience didn’t matter much for us. It was the fight and competitiveness we were willing to show and the desire to fight for longer periods that helped us get through that phase quicker than what others might’ve faced,” he added. To be fair to Sri Lanka, they lost Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Tillakaratne Dilshan over the last two years.
