Sri Lanka's inconsistency cost them dear at the World Cup, coach Chris Silverwood said after his team suffered a seventh defeat in nine matches at the 50-overs tournament in India.
Sri Lanka, who had already been eliminated, lost by five wickets to New Zealand at Bengaluru's M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.
"I think inconsistency. I think it would be fair to use that word," Silverwood told reporters. "I think we've played some good cricket along the way, and I think we'll look back on certain games and rue missed opportunities, to be honest.
"There have been certain games during this campaign that if we'd have taken the opportunities that were put our way, this could have looked a lot different.
"But the fact is that we have been inconsistent and it's something that we've been working on for a long time and something we need to continue working on."
Silverwood was also left "frustrated" due to the fielding performance of the players throughout the tournament.
During Sri Lanka's clash against India, the Lankan Lions dropped catches of Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill in the powerplay that affected their chances in that match. Overall they have dropped more catches than almost any other team this tournament, with their completed catch percentage down to 70.21 per cent -- the worst performance by any team.
"Yeah, it's frustrating, because certain catches that we've put down during this tournament have cost us. It's again something that we're constantly working on. Our fielding coach is constantly working on that and trying to obviously push the standards higher. But clearly there's still work to be done as well. I mean, we are getting ourselves in positions where there's more catches coming our way. We've been brave and going for half chances more, but clearly, we have to start hanging on to these if we want to start turning games in our favour," Silverwood said.
Silverwood said they would review their performances in India and look at how they can improve heading into the next cycle.
"Have a good debrief, dissect what's happened and have a look at what we can learn from this and what we can take into the next phase, the next chapter leading into the next World Cup, and how do we put things right that we got wrong this time," he said.
"We have everybody on the path, we have everybody available and we can put our best foot forward"
