Mahela blames poor player fitness levels for disappointing World Cup Campaign

• Stresses the need to improve Sri Lanka’s domestic cricket structure   

By Shehan Daniel   
As the postmortem begins into Sri Lanka’s disappointing Cricket World Cup campaign, Consultant Coach Mahela Jayawardene blamed the poor fitness levels of the players as a key reason for the team’s performances during the tournament.    

The team returned to the island on Friday, having finished ninth out of ten teams in the Group Stage, which meant they did not qualify for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in Pakistan, the first time that Sri Lanka will completely miss out on an ICC event.   
Elaborating on the areas that he believed would need to be worked on moving forward, Jayawardene said, “For me, the biggest thing is the fitness. What I noticed over the course of a tournament like this, because of our fitness, the fatigue got into us, and the performance died down.”   
“From the first game to the last game, we saw guys make a lot more mistakes. That happens with mental and physical fatigue, and then the execution and the concentration lacks because of that.”   

Sri Lanka were also plagued with injuries before and during the tournament.   
Spinner Wanindu Hasaranga, considered to be among the best all-rounders in the world, was completely ruled out of the World Cup with a hamstring injury, while fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera was available for only the latter part of the tournament.   
Over the last two years, Sri Lanka has been unable to field its best team in major tournaments, due to a litany of injuries.   
During this year’s World Cup, fast bowler Lahiru Kumara and captain Dasun Shanaka picked up injuries that cut short their availability during the course of Sri Lanka’s campaign.   
Injury issues in the team have been particularly pronounced over unable to field their best teams in two T20 World Cups.   
Not for the first time, Sri Lanka’s uncompetitive domestic cricket structure was also identified as an area that needed urgent attention.   
“The domestic cricket, the skillset, the standard needs to improve,” Jayawardene stressed.   
“If we talk about the future, we need to play our domestic cricket on good wickets (similar to those in other countries) so that when the teams play overseas there is less adjustment required.”   
He also called for patience and realistic expectations with a group of young players, adding that some people needed to understand what modern-day cricket is.   
“People jumping, shouting and screaming, have to realize what modern-day cricket is, and how we are going to compete going forward. The plans have been set, but we need to be patient and work harder in areas we need to improve,” Jayawardene said.   

“It’s a process that we have to trust, and it’s a process that we have to have patience with because this is a skilful group. Most of the guys are in their early 20s or mid-20s, which means they are going to be a force to reckon with going forward. The expectations I understand, cricket fans, Sri Lankan fans they all know that when we go for a World Cup, we are going to do well, we are going to perform. But that expectation has to be realistic, along with the plans,” he added.