New Sri Lanka head coach Gary Kirsten says understanding the island\u2019s cricketing identity will be central to rebuilding the team for the World Cup.<\/p>\n
The 58-year-old former South Africa opener started last week on a two-year contract that will see him in charge for the 50-over World Cup next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI need to understand the culture really well, understand what makes the players tick, understand the environment,\u201d Kirsten told reporters in Colombo.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got a lot of learning to do as I go through this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kirsten was India coach from 2008 to 2011, taking them to World Cup glory, then coached South Africa from 2011 to 2013.<\/p>\n
He was appointed by Sri Lanka after Sanath Jayasuriya left the position before his term was due to expire at the end of June.<\/p>\n
Sri Lanka co-hosted the T20 World Cup with eventual winners India but crashed out at the Super Eights stage, their fate sealed by a 61-run defeat to New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Kirsten said he would work with translators \u2013 but that English \u201cworks quite well in cricket\u201d as a language of communication.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve worked across a lot of different cultures and countries, so I\u2019ve had a bit of experience in that space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The 2027 World Cup will be co-hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia.<\/p>\n
\u2014 AFP<\/p>\n
Photo: Gareth Copley\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Sri Lanka head coach Gary Kirsten says understanding the island\u2019s cricketing identity will be central to rebuilding…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-625796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}