Asia Cup 2025: 'This team can go very far' - Sanath Jayasuriya 'fairly satisfied' with Sri Lanka's performance

Sri Lanka's head coach Sanath Jayasuriya has expressed confidence on the T20I team to have a bright future ahead based on their performances in Asia Cup 2025. The Lankans won three and lost as many in an up-and-down campaign.

Jayasuriya admitted that he although he felt disappointed that Sri Lanka could not get to the summit clash, he was assured of the batting and bowling prowess of the current T20I setup. He also shed light on the vital aspect of being able to adapt to different circumstances to succeed. 

"Today, India played very well to get over 200. Our boys showed they're capable of chasing that, but again, we fell just short. Apart from that Bangladesh game, I'm fairly satisfied, though disappointed not to reach the final. We have the batting and bowling quality. The key is to execute plans according to conditions and opposition. If we do that consistently, this team can go very far," stated Jayasuriya, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.

Continuing on where he left off, Jayasuriya touched upon how not adapting to varying conditions cost the Lankans a couple of games (Super Four clashes against Bangladesh and Pakistan) before their final match of the tournament against India.  

"In T20 cricket, assessing conditions quickly is everything. In Abu Dhabi, for example, the first-round pitches had pace and bounce, but in the second round, things changed, and we were too slow to adapt. That cost us. The disappointment was the Bangladesh match in the Super Four - 168 on that pitch was a good score, but we didn't bowl well enough to defend it. Against Pakistan, we didn't assess the conditions [in Abu Dhabi] quickly enough, and were late to adapt," he added.

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Sri Lanka emerged as table-toppers of Group B. However, they could not win any of their Super Four matches. Despite a valiant effort against the Men in Blue, they fell short after almost pulling off an iconic chase to be the first team to give India a run for their money in the ongoing installment of the Asia Cup.