Dav Whatmore reflects on lessons learned and progress made

The Sri Lankan team is now enjoying a well-earned break before we start preparation for the forthcoming tri-nation series in Sharjah and West Indies tour of Sri Lanka in November. It allows for a moments reflection and looking back over the last three months (including the pre-series preparation) I have identified three areas in which the team has progressed.

Dav Whatmore National Coach

First and foremost the team has gained invaluable experience of playing under the new six batsmen-fast bowler focused formation pursued by the national selectors, designed to lead to greater competitiveness overseas, even if the actual surfaces during the Test matches were a shade dryer than expected.

They is still plenty of learning ahead of course but, wherever possible, we should aim to maintain our winning streak whilst at the same time improving the way we perform under the modified formation. The two goals of immediate success and long-term development are not easy to balance all the time, but the more often they are fused the better.

It has not been easy for the batsmen at times, but I believe they ultimately gained greater confidence of playing on previously foreign surfaces, particularly in the run-up to the India series, when we practiced on net surfaces with a full covering of grass, where the ball frequently jagged off the seam. In the short term the batsmen may lose some confidence, but the long-term benefits make this worthwhile.

The objective was simple: we want the batsmen to learn how to survive in conditions where the ball is darting around. The key to this is not playing at the ball away from the body. Playing and missing is fine, but you must not follow the ball. Survival against the moving ball requires a more compact technique and the more practice the players have under those conditions the better they will become.

The second area of progress has been the growing realisation that the batsmen must not relax once they have made a good start. We have talked about it many of times before, as does every team at every level, but during the final SSC Test against India the immense value of placing a higher premium on your wicket was graphically illustrated to the team.

If you throw your wicket away after a solid start it can have a very destructive effect. Look at the dismissal of Shiv Das in the first innings, who had batted so well in the morning, but gave his wicket away shortly after reaching his fifty, which then precipitated a dramatic first innings collapse. On the other hand we capitalised on our good starts, four batsmen scored hundreds and the result was over 600 runs.

The third aspect of our performance that impressed me was the fast bowling on a dead SSC pitch. There was very little encouragement for the bowlers, which means that they have to concentrate on applying pressure by bowling accurately and keeping the runs down. It's a heartless process that requires plenty of guts and determination by each member of the bowling attack. If you are able to maintain the pressure, though, then someone will invariably cash in and take some wickets.

We need the fast bowlers to get used to this attritional and disciplined form of attack because this can be a common feature of Test cricket overseas, where the ball is not always boomeranging around. Sometimes you just have to sit in and slowly apply pressure. We did this well at SSC and will have to do so more often if we are to win consistently.

It's not only the batsmen who learn from playing on livelier surfaces, as the bowlers too have to adapt their length to different conditions. If you look back at the South African tour we tended to bowl slightly too short of a length, which gives batsmen enough time to adjust to the movement off the pitch and through the air. To get edges overseas you generally need to bowl a fuller length and our fast bowlers need to practice bowling this length.

So, all in all, plenty of positives came out of the series, in addition to the successful result itself. We now have to build on this progress over the coming weeks, when we will be focusing hard on our skills with specialist assistance from Barry Richard (batting), Darrel Foster (fast bowling) and Peter Philpot (spin bowling).