Ashantha de Mel, Sri Lanka’s chief selector, has said that the poorfielding has let the team down in the ODI series against India

Cricinfo staff04-Feb-2009
Ashantha de Mel: “There were a couple of dropped catches the other day and you saw some fielders dodging the ball when there was an opportunity to take a possible catch” © Cricinfo Ltd.
Ashantha de Mel, Sri Lanka’s chief selector, has come out with a stinging indictment of the team’s performance in the ODI series against India, which the hosts have lost 3-0 with two matches to go. de Mel criticised the fielding and the running between the wickets, and said the selectors would meet Sri Lanka Cricket’s chief executive, DuleepMendis, over these issues on Thursday.Gautam Gambhir and Suresh Raina were dropped in the first game, YuvrajSingh was dropped in the second and Gambhir and Virender Sehwag weredropped in the third.”One of the main areas we are concerned with is our fielding. Ihave observed that the team is not doing enough fielding drills andnot spending enough time to make sure the fielding remains on top,” deMel told the , a Colombo-based English daily. “The selectors who have been on tour too have noted that sufficient time has not been spent on developing fieldingskills. We [the selectors] are meeting the SLC CEO tomorrowand we are going to take up the issue. We want to tell the managementas well that the fielding drills should be given top priority andmaybe we need to do some supervision as well.”de Mel said Sri Lanka’s fielding was much better when Tom Moodywas the coach, when he was assisted by Trevor Penney, the fielding coach.After Penney, they had local fielding coaches but no one has been consistently with the team. Sri Lanka, currently coached by Trevor Bayliss, have been without a fielding coach since the last series against India in 2008.”When Tom Moody was there, this wasn’t the case. He insisted wespend considerable time doing fielding drills. Currently, wehave four or five guys who can’t throw,” de Mel said. “There were a couple ofdropped catches the other day and you saw some fielders dodging theball when there was an opportunity to take a possible catch. It’sdisappointing to see fielding levels coming down.”de Mel was also concerned with the running between the wickets. “Iwas going through the records of the second ODI and I was stunned to seethat there were 125 dot balls when we batted. That can’t happen in one-daycricket. You may have the occasional run-out.”Sri Lanka have retained the squad for the rest of the series andde Mel reasoned that changes would have been an eye-opener for them to perform or perish.”We could have made changes, but pressure will be even more if we hadincluded new guys. Now, what we have got to do is to make sure that wefinish off the series with some wins behind us rather than make thingsworse.”However, de Mel felt there was nothing drastically wrong with the team. “We had a good series in Pakistan. I don’t see anything major wrong taking place, but little things. But the thing is these little things can have a huge affect at the end. If you don’t practice fielding, you will be sloppy in the field and you can’t let that happen against the quality of Yuvraj [Singh] and [Virender] Sehwag.”One positive for me was the way Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara batted during the third ODI. They were positive and that’s the way to go. Tillakaratne Dilshan too is shaping up well and let’s hope things will click in the last two games.”de Mel said the selectors were tempted to play Lasith Malinga for thelast two ODIs but decided not to rush his comeback. “At the moment, wedon’t want to play him in the one day game. Let’s see how he goes in the Twenty20. He’s coming from a fairly serious injury and we need to handle him carefully.”He added that Tommy Simsek, the physiotherapist, would soon beback to help the team. “He played a key role in managing players’injuries. When we play too much of cricket, you need to manage theseniggles that occur and he was good at it. He will be back.”