Sri Lanka’s head coach, Sanath Jayasuriya, blames the team’s batting issues for the massive inning-and-242-run defeat against Australia in the Galle Test. Australia scored a whopping 654 runs in the first innings before declaring. Following this onslaught, they bundled Sri Lanka for a combined total of 412 in both innings.
Jayasuriya said the players’ inability to grasp the situation well after Australia posted the gigantic total instead of how the wicket play was what became the reason behind the defeat
“There was a serious problem with shot selections, as well as with handling situations. I don’t think certain players have handled situations well. They’re experienced players, and they have to be more mature.” the Sri Lankan Head coach explained.
“These players have played a lot of cricket and should know how to play. I’ve talked to them about this. But we’ve got to talk to them in detail about this now. Also, we cannot blame the wicket. Because we saw how the wicket behaved. This was a very good wicket. For a long time, we haven’t seen such a good wicket in Galle, on the third and fourth days.”
The issue with the Sri Lankan batter, according to Jayasuriya, is that they could not capitalize on the starts they took, unlike Australian batters, who went on to play long innings.
“The biggest problem is the batters who are taking a start but are not going to play a long innings. This is something I always mutter. We saw [Usman] Khawaja, [Steven] Smith and [Josh] Inglis, all three of them took a good start and they converted them to big hundreds. This conversion must be there. We’re not consistent in that. Our players should know that these are our conditions and we must make use of these conditions. There were lots of opportunities but we didn’t make use of them.”
With the ball, Sri Lanka could only remove six Australian batters on a surface famous for its love of spinners. But the Sri Lankan coach thinks, the bowlers failed to read the wicket and went on to bowl fast on a track that was rewarding slow deliveries.
“They were bowling a little faster than us, but we were thinking that our pace was the best. That’s what we’ve been doing. The wicket was on the slower side and we were trying to bowl a little faster, but we ended up bowling as we usually do here.” Jayasuriya said.
“After the third or fourth day, we saw the normal Galle wicket. What the Australia spinners did was bowl a little faster than us. That’s normally what they’re doing. We’re used to bowling at a slower pace, but it didn’t work in this match. We need to discuss all that also.”
Dinesh Chandimal scored Sri Lanka’s highest individual score across both innings, a mere 72, which best reflects the struggles the hosts experienced in the first game. Both teams will play the second Test at the same venue, and Sri Lanka will have to make amends to their flaws to avoid a potential whitewash.
