Sports
Silverwood’s final hurrah
by Rex Clementine
The team that has won most County Championships in England is Yorkshire. Generally, Yorkshire’s players are snobbish often blowing their own trumpets and looking down upon others. But Chris Silverwood, Sri Lanka’s Head Coach, has been the complete contrast. A friendly, unassuming man, Silverwood hardly gives you the impression that he was a former fast bowler; that too from Yorkshire. He has been very passionate about his coaching and has embraced the Sri Lankan culture. More than anything, he is a good man.
While the coaching staff of the national cricket team was completely overhauled after last year’s World Cup debacle, Silverwood survived.
Having got an extension till the World Cup in the United States and Caribbean, the upcoming tournament will be his swansong. Will there be a final hurrah for Silverwood?
With Mickey Arthur done with Sri Lanka two years ago, when one of our former captains was entrusted the job of head hunting a successor for Arthur, he opted for Englishman Paul Farbrace. There was bad history between Farbrace and SLC as he had abandoned the team after just a few months into his stint in 2014. That he walked straight into the England dressing room as Assistant Coach from the Sri Lankan dressing room as Head Coach with a tour of England on the cards was a bitter pill to swallow. Farbrace abandoned Sri Lanka a second time too and then it was decided to settle for Silverwood.
Silverwood had been England’s Head Coach but was sacked after the disastrous Ashes tour. When a coach is sacked, the last thing he would want to do is to take up another struggling team. If things went south with the new team, that would be very bad to the reputation of the coach. Silverwood, however, took up the challenge.
Looking back at his tenure as Sri Lanka’s Head Coach, you would notice that the team won the Asia Cup under his watch. There were other highlights like squaring a Test series against Australia and beating the same opponents in an ODI series. But on paper, by and large, you would declare that his tenure wasn’t an overwhelmingly successful one. However, you need to look beyond results.
Despite the drawbacks, one thing that has stood out well for Sri Lanka in the last two years is fast bowling. That’s credit to Silverwood for bringing the best out of some young quicks that Sri Lanka have introduced in recent years.
The team also has had several discipline issues over the years and fitness has been a major concern. There is so much a coach can do at the highest level and the initiative has to come from the players themselves. You can only take a horse to the water. You can’t make it drink.
There’s another school of thought that a team that had so many discipline issues needed someone in the mold of Tom Moody, a taskmaster as Head Coach and not the nice guy in Silverwood. But in his own imitable style, Silverwood has groomed the team well giving young players confidence and backing the ones that had impressed him to the hilt. He deserves to go out on a high note.
Morocco’s plans for their World Cup quarterfinal against France have been shaken up after it was confirmed that star forward Ismael Saibari will miss the match.
Saibari sustained a hamstring injury in the last-16 match against Canada and has not recovered in time for the crucial knockout match, coach Mohamed Ouahbi said on Wednesday.
“Everyone is 100 percent fit except Saibari. This game comes too soon for him, but I hope he is not out for the rest of the competition,” Ouahbi told reporters ahead of Thursday’s last-eight showdown in Boston.
Saibari, who has just joined Bayern Munich from Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven on a five-year deal for a reported fee of 50 million euros ($57m), has been one of the standout players at this year’s World Cup.
He scored in each of his team’s three group games and converted the winning penalty in the shootout as Morocco beat the Netherlands in the last 32.
However, the attacking midfielder came off early with a hamstring problem in the 3-0 win against Canada in the last 16 last Saturday.
Should Morocco progress, Saibari might make a comeback in the semifinals.
“He’s not ready, but I hope it’s not the end of the tournament for him,” Ouahbi said.
Saibari went off the pitch to receive medical attention after sustaining an injury against Canada [Aljazeera]
Soufiane Rahimi, who is an out-and-out striker, came on for Saibari in that game and scored Morocco’s third goal.
The Atlas Lions are seeking to avenge their 2-0 defeat against France in the semifinals of the 2022 World Cup.
That was the first time any African or Arab team had reached the last four of the tournament, and their incentive this time is to match that run.
Ouahbi dismissed suggestions that his team can say they have already had a successful tournament by getting to the quarterfinals.
“We absolutely want to win the game tomorrow, so we will not listen to people who say it doesn’t matter if we go out now,” said the coach, who took over from Walid Regragui in March.
“Tomorrow, we will try to get to the semifinals. I don’t like this sentiment that we have already done well and anything else is a bonus,” added Ouahbi, who said he had watched the 2022 meeting of the sides as a fan, on television.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s Real Madrid star Brahim Diaz insisted his side can compete with the much-fancied France as he prepares to come up against Kylian Mbappe, his colleague at club level.
“Tomorrow, we are playing one of the favourites, but we have shown we can compete, and that is why we are here. I have full faith and full confidence in the team.”
[Aljazeera]
West Indies have been fined ten percent of their match fee and penalised two World Test Championship (WTC) points for maintaining a slow over-rate in the second Test against Sri Lanka in Antigua.
Match referee Javagal Srinath imposed the sanction after the hosts were found to be two overs short of the target after time allowances were taken into consideration.
As per to the ICC Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel, players are fined five percent of their match fee for each over their team fails to bowl within the allotted time, with the maximum penalty capped at 50 percent of the match fee. Additionally, a side is penalised one point in the WTC points table for each over short as per the ICC WTC playing conditions.
Captain Roston Chase pled guilty to the offence and accepted the proposed sanction, so there was no need for a formal hearing.
West Indies bowled 188.3 overs across both innings and secured a draw after conceding a 50-run deficit in the first innings. Having won the first Test at the same venue, by an innings and 217 runs, the result was enough to complete a 1-0 series win. They stand ninth on the WTC table with 18 points, after the deduction, with one win, two draws and seven losses in ten games.
[Cricinfo]
Cabinet Subcommittee on the Development of 25 Technical and Vocational Colleges meets under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister
Representatives of the Organization of Professional Associations (OPA) of Sri Lanka meet the Prime Minister
District Secretaries’ Conference Chaired by the President
ICC contacts ECB over Stokes retirement video
Greater focus must be placed on strengthening primary healthcare
Morocco dealt huge blow as injured Saibari out of World Cup quarterfinal
‘Dates have the highest sugar content to fight Coronavirus’
Sunday Island 27 December – Headlines
#SundayIsland 17th December – Headlines
Sunday Island – 28th March
Sunday Island Headlines – 21 March
Sunday Island – 21st February – Headlines
-
News5 days agoSingapore-based Buddhist monk marks nearly four decades of humanitarian service
-
News7 days agoCIABOC to question Harak Kata on Rs. 200 mn bribery allegation
-
News6 days agoFreedom 250: US Embassy celebrates America’s 250th Independence Day through magic of American cinema
-
Business7 days ago‘Dialog Air Fibre powers a new era of Ultra Fast Home WiFi’
-
News7 days agoSLAF conducts successful rescue mission under UN command in Central African Republic
-
News4 days agoAI concerned over proposed SL military deployment in Haiti
-
News7 days agoUNEP support pledged to strengthen Sri Lanka’s Environmental Priorities
-
Midweek Review2 days agoUnexpected focus on ‘pieces of tin’ worn by military men