Colombo – Ireland were still chewing over Saturday’s narrow loss to Sri Lanka when they filed into training on Monday, but head coach Heinrich Malan does not want the post-mortem to drag on for long.
“There’s some real disappointment at the end of that game,” Malan admitted, a touch of exasperation still in the voice. “For a large part, we were playing exactly the sort of way we wanted to play from a planning, preparation point of view. Obviously, a little bit of the execution throughout that critical period has let us down.”
The critical period he means is the last six overs with bat and ball – the so-called death overs. Ireland conceded too many, then stumbled in the chase, turning what looked a gettable target into a 22-run defeat. Harry Tector’s 61 was the bright spot; the messy fielding that gifted Sri Lanka extra runs was the darker one.
Malan is keen to park the blame game. “We could always make an issue about it, [but] history will tell you over the last five or six games, we’ve actually fielded really, really well,” he pointed out. “We haven’t really done too much around highlighting the simple things that we know we need to be better at. You know, those basic fundamentals, the basic skill sets that we’ve got to execute at this level, which is the non-negotiable.”
Facts first, then: Wednesday’s opponents are Australia, a side Ireland rarely meet outside global events. The Aussies have rested a couple of senior names, yet still arrive with a battery of quicks and enough batting depth to fill three middle orders. Malan isn’t fooled by the missing stars.
“Whenever an Australian team rocks up, it’ll be a very competitive team. You look at our side, we’ve got some proven performers too, and it sets up to be an exciting challenge. We took a fair bit out of the [2022 World Cup] game, and hopefully we can apply some of those learnings.”
The surface at the R Premadasa Stadium is unlikely to change much in two days – slow, a touch tacky, the sort that rewards bowlers who take pace off. Sri Lanka exploited that perfectly. Ireland have been practising exactly that this week, mixing off-cutters and slower balls, even asking the spinners to bowl the odd yorker just to see how it lands.
“The clarity of our convictions is probably the most important part there,” Malan said. “We learned a little bit from the way that Sri Lanka went about their business. They obviously took all the pace off the ball. It’s definitely something that we’ve added to the thinking – part of our seamers and some of our spinners to be able to bowl later on in the innings.”
Conditions will test conditioning as well as technique: 34 °C in the shade, humidity in the mid-70s. In short, draining. “The team that can do that quickest and adapt quickest and execute their skills to the best of their ability will get ahead in the game,” Malan warned.
What of the batting order? No major reshuffle is planned. The hope is that top-order discipline and late-innings composure improve without drastic changes. “The lads are really excited about the challenge. With a bit of knowledge around the conditions, kind of field dimensions, obviously the wicket. So, you know, just making sure that we’re up to speed with that and ensuring that we’ve got our plans in p,” Malan said, the sentence tailing off as he glanced towards the nets.
Ireland do not lack self-belief. They do lack, for the moment, the string of wins that locks that belief in place. Beat Australia on Wednesday, and one misfield in Kandy might quickly feel like ancient history.
