‘Forget 0-9 loss, hit refresh’

Kolkata, Sri Lanka head coach Nic Pothas says the heavy defeat to India at home earlier this year taught them important lessons. Pothas says the team would not be awestruck by the fancied hosts since Sri Lanka are much better now.
India had whitewashed Sri Lanka in all the formats — three Tests, five ODIs and one T20I — when they toured the island nation in July-September. The Sri Lankan team reached here yesterday for a three-Test series, which begins on November 16 here, to be followed by six limited-overs matches.
“Thanks for reminding us now (of the defeats). It’s always a pleasure to come here and challenge ourselves against a very, very good team,” the South African said.
After that forgettable encounter against India, Sri Lanka showed character to bounce back and beat Pakistan 2-0 in the UAE in their Test series. “We learnt how the Indian team does well and the areas we needed to improve,” said Pothas.
Asked what changed in such a short span of two months, he said: “It’s internal — the discipline, the culture and how the teams stick together. When we took on India, we were all pretty new, from the support staff and the players involved.”
Stressing the need to focus on their strengths, Pothas urged his players to not get enamoured of India. “We focus on ourselves. The mistake you can make here is come and be infatuated with the Indian side, concentrating too much on them,” he said. “We know they are a good side. But we played them months ago. We are concentrating on our strengths and jobs. If we execute them well, it will be a challenging series. Not many teams have come here and won. Sometimes you can get hung up on weaknesses. We go the other way and focus on what we do well.” Sri Lanka managed to humble Pakistan in the UAE and the coach said the conditions, coupled with the absence of Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan, made their job easier.