When Pubudu Dassanayake arrived in Kathmandu on September 29, he had a successful history of guiding Canada into ICC World Cup 2011 but he faced a similar challenge of taking charge of Nepali national cricket team as he was replacing Sri Lankan veteran Roy Luke Dias.
Probably, realizing the challenges, the soft speaken Sri-Lanka born Canadian made a cautious comment about his target.
“Coaching is challenging and I’m here to face it. My major assignment is to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup Qualifiers through the ACC Twenty20,” said Dassanayake then.
But, if you meet Dassanayake now, he is more confident and says, “Our ultimate goal will be to win the ACC Twenty20 Tournament.”
Dassanayake set up a focus on improving fitness level of the Nepali players when he met them first and he started teaching them how to adapt the Twenty20 format of the game.
“If I’ve to say it in percentage, they are 70 percent fit enough and now we will focus on maintaining it during the remaining training days,” Dassanayake told Republica.
Meanwhile, he also claimed that he helped players to change their mindset on playing unorthodox shots and adapting Twenty20 format. “I’ve no issue, if they play a shot, try to score but get out,” said Dassanayake.
Nepali U-25 team’s success against Karnataka Institute of Cricket (KIC), India in the recently concluded SAARC U-25 Twenty20 Cricket could be considered as a dividend of Dassanayake’s theory.
Nepal has an average score of 113 runs in the Twenty20 format of the game. Nepal had won only seven T20 matches of the 14 official matches it played. Nepal’s highest official T20 score till date is 159 runs against Bahrain in the ACC Twenty20, 2009.
However, Nepali U-25 team successfully chased the target of 219 runs against KIC. In the match, Captain Paras Khadka and Gyanendra Malla scored 114 runs in 5.3 overs to lift Nepal from 108/4 by the end of the 14th over.
“Twenty20 is all about believing yourself and playing your shots. I’m impressed, we have come few steps ahead than the time I met the team for the first time. However, maturity to play a shot in the right time is still a major concern,” said Dassanayake.
“Players like Paras (Khadka), Gyanendra (Malla), Prithu (Baskota) and Pradeep (Airee) are doing well in the net and they have to take it to the middle of the ground consistently. Binod (Bhandari) also plays unorthodox shots like reverse, paddle and sweep. Batting is slowly coming to a level,” he added.
The players in the closed camp have been playing practice matches dividing teams within them and Dassanayake could be found counting dot balls after every innings. “You can’t let too many dot balls in T20 format. We had this problem in the Maldives (SAARC U-25 Twenty20) too. We should pull singles if we can’t hit boundary. Batsmen should improve in taking singles,” said Dassanayake.
Dassanayake claimed that as usual the Nepali team is good in bowling and fielding. “As I know, we are good in bowling and fielding and we have improved in these areas also,” he said.
Nepal will take on Hong Kong, UAE, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the group stage of the upcoming ACC Twenty20 Tournament that will be held in Kathmandu from December 3 to 11.
“I’m not worried about the semifinal. We have to win the tournament,” said Dassanayake. “However, I’ll take one match at a time,” he concluded diplomatically.