Silverwood stresses on consistency after Sri Lanka's abject surrender

After a disastrous performance with the bat from Sri Lanka, which brought about a quick end to a one-sided Asia Cup final in Colombo on Sunday (September 17), head coach Chris Silverwood viewed the drubbing at the hands of India as a "kick in the rear end" from which Sri Lanka can learn lessons and ensure they remain consistent going into the World Cup in a few weeks' time.

Mohammed Siraj's fiery spell of 6-21, in which he picked up four wickets in a single over, expedited Sri Lanka's collapse as they were bowled out for 50 in 15.2 overs. India needed only 6.1 overs to get to the target, without losing any wickets, to register their biggest win in terms of deliveries to spare and lift the Asia Cup for the eighth time.

Addressing the press conference after the game, Silverwood said the loss was something Sri Lanka could not afford to dwell on too much going into the World Cup. "Clearly it was a bad day in the office for us, a superb bowling performance there. I think we came up against a high-class bowling unit and equally, we didn't help ourselves (with our batting performance). It was disappointing to finish the way we did. It's one of those things we can't dwell on too much because we have a big tournament coming up, obviously with the World Cup. So there are lessons to learn, questions to be asked in the dressing room, and we have to move forward from this.

"First of all, we played some very good cricket to get to the final, we had to fight very hard to get here. So for me it's an achievement in itself to be in the final. Clearly to lose in the manner we have there is very disappointing and it's something that will hurt all the players and the coaching staff as well. I think we are going to have to rebuild to put the confidence back in the players. Obviously we are given a little bit of a break now, go home, relax, refresh the brain, get back together and start rebuilding from where we left off.

"Sometimes, a little bit of kick in the rear end before you go into big tournaments is not the worst for me either. Maybe this is just a bit of a wake up call. For us to compete against India, Australia, New Zealand, those types of guys, we have to be on top of our games, we have to make sure we turn up consistently all the time. Maybe this is something that we can use to motivate us through the World Cup," said Silverwood.

Silverwood chose to view the positives from the tournament, both individual performances and team work, but stressed that Sri Lanka needed to work on their consistency to challenge some of the stronger teams heading into the big competition. "If we take today out of the equation, we've seen two youngsters put their hands up in Wellalage and Pathirana. We've seen the two of them emerge onto the world stage. Sadeera has played some good knocks, we've seen Mendis come back into form. So there have been some good individual performances in there, and some good team performances. But clearly consistency is the thing that we need to bring into our game, and make sure that we do it day in and day out. And then we can go toe to toe with teams like India," he said.

Silverwood also defended skipper Dasun Shanaka, who has been going through a lean patch with the bat, managing a highest of only 24 in the competition. The head coach said instilling confidence in their captain and making sure he has all the support that he needs, will ensure he gets back to his destructive best.

"From my point of view, it's trying to make sure that we put confidence into him, we'd love his tails up. And he continues to train hard and work hard. Hopefully we can turn that corner with him. We just need to keep working hard and try to get that confidence into him. One score and he'll be away. We know what he's capable of, we've seen it before, he can be a very destructive batsman. And we've seen in this tournament he's more than a useful bowler as well. So for me he's one score away from flying again. But obviously there's some hard work to do there as well.

"Obviously there's more to being a captain than just the scores and one thing Dasun is very good at, he's got the respect of the dressing room. He understands the players, he shows the players a lot of love and he gives them a lot of support. So for me it's returning that love and support to him, and the fact that we're going to make sure we're there for him, we'll help him work hard and try to turn a corner with him. But he's not on his own in there, he's got a lot of support in that dressing room," Silverwood concluded.