De Silva on Sri Lanka’s chances in the previous WTC cycle, saying they missed ‘big chance’ to make WTC final.
Dhananjaya de Silva reminded team-mates of what could’ve been ahead of first Test against Bangladesh.
As Sri Lanka Test captain Dhananjaya de Silva watched the South Africans celebrate their World Test Championship victory, he reminded his team that it might have been them.
Sri Lanka had a good chance of reaching the championship game. They would have been playing in the Lord’s final if they had won three of their final four Test matches in the 2023–25 cycle (they had two home matches against Australia and two away matches against South Africa). Instead, they finished sixth on the WTC standings after losing all of those matches, the majority of which were rather severely.
“We had a big chance to get to final but unfortunately we couldn’t do it,” de Silva said on the eve of the first Test against Bangladesh. “Even yesterday, when I talked to the boys, I reminded them where we could have been (at Lord’s this week), and where we ended up. As we start a new cycle, we know we have to win our home series. We need to pick up all those points. It’s a great opportunity to start a new cycle with a home series.”
Sri Lanka’s issue is that their test schedule for this cycle is both irregular and sparse. They will play in the West Indies again in mid-2026, which is about a year after this series. Unless additional Test matches are hurriedly planned, they will only play the minimum of 12 Test matches this cycle. Dimuth Karunaratne and Angelo Mathews, two of their key Test players who are retiring this year, have criticised a Sri Lanka schedule that appears to be leaking Test matches.
However, De Silva only wants his players to focus on winning the few games they still have left.
“Our job as professionals is to adapt to any situation. We have to play the situations we’re given – we can’t blame anyone. Last year we got a few Tests, but this year we didn’t, and that’s not something that is in our hands.”