'Meetings are conducted by group of foreigners, players don’t understand what they say' - Tillakaratne Dilshan reckons Sri Lanka to prefer local coaches

The Sri Lanka Cricket team has suffered an annihilation in recent times as they have failed to produce any significant performances both at home and overseas. The team is currently on a limited-overs tour to England but they are experiencing a disastrous outing. Sri Lanka lost the three-match T20I series against England 0-3.

The same was followed by the visitors registering a horrendous defeat in the first One Day International of the three-match against England by five wickets. Seeing the poor performance by the English side, former Sri Lanka skipper Tillakaratne Dilshan has offered a piece of advice to the team management. 

Dilshan believes that the Sri Lanka cricket authorities shouldn’t be filled with overseas coaches and mentors. The veteran backed the idea of having just one foreign coach while all the other team management members should be local coaches. He believes that having a lot of foreigners in the management setup creates a language barrier as there are many players who fail to understand what the coach is trying to convey. 

“The team meeting is conducted by a group of foreigners. Our players don’t totally understand what they say.” Said Dilshan, highlighting language gaps between coaches and players during an episode of the “Chilling with Russel” talk show.

We should have picked at least 2-3 seniors: Sanath Jayasuriya

Further in the interaction, Dilshan asserted that the team management has made a mistake by sacking all the experienced players as the squad should be built while maintaining a balance between the young and experienced players. The former skipper backed the senior players including the likes of  Mathews, Chandimal, and Thirimanne to make a comeback in the team as they can provide much-needed stability. 

Former Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya also echoed the same sentiments while speaking on another talk show as he added that England are one of the best cricket teams across the globe and it wasn’t a good move to send a relatively inexperienced side to the United Kingdom. 

“England are one of the best teams in the world currently. We should have picked at least 2-3 seniors on this tour to provide stability” Jayasuriya said.