NAGPUR, Sunday – Sri Lanka faced with an insurmountable task of wiping out a huge deficit of 405 runs and with over two days of play left in the second Test against India plan to stay positive in their second innings as they try to save the second Test being played at the Vidharba CA Stadium here.
The last occasion that Sri Lanka scored over 400 runs against India was at the P Sara Oval in 2010 when they made 425 and the chance of repeating that performance is not beyond them if the batsmen can knuckle down to play long innings just as the Indian batsmen showed in the past two days.
At the wicket are two batsmen with the temperament to do that Dimuth Karunaratne who is batting on 11 and Lahiru Thirimanne on 9 not out.
“First and foremost we have to say that it was a good track and we should have put on more than what we have done. India showed that,” said Sri Lanka’s fast bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake. “We discussed things like batting out the day and staying for the next day. I thought the decision to leave the ball by Sadeera was poor. He left the first ball and he perhaps thought the ball was going away. Bad judgement.
“The other two (Dimuth and Lahiru) were trying to be positive. That is what we are trying to do. We are going to play in sessions. We will break sessions into portions and we will try to win them. We want to be positive. If you take the Indian innings, they were positive and we can take that as a lesson. All it needs is for our batsmen to try to get their confidence back,” Ratnayake added.
“Playing in India is tough. We have never won a Test match here. That is one of our ambitions to win a Test match in India. When it will come we don’t know. We won an unofficial Test match in 1964, but not after we got Test status. The closest we came to beating India was in our first Test with them at Chepauk in 1982. Sunil Gavaskar was their captain. Hopefully we will do it one day,” Ratnayake said.
Ratnayake who bowled Sri Lanka to their first-ever Test victory over India in 1985 admitted that the whole bowling system has to be thought out of how they can take 20 wickets to win a Test match.
“We came quite close in the first Test. People then said that it was a green track. We took 18 wickets in Kolkata. It is a concern. I am not trying to say that we have the best bowlers. We have to do things in a way so that we have the best. In today’s context we have not done well. I would like to still encourage the bowlers saying that they have slowed the process a little bit. We need to take 20 wickets that’s for sure,” said Ratnayake.
“What we have for the tour is what we have. We have to manage with that. Saying that, with the past record in Sri Lanka against India, we have done quite well. They have scored 600 runs in 176 overs compared to some of the runs they scored in Sri Lanka. Not taking that as a huge compliment as a fast bowling coach but that is what we have.”
Indian opener Cheteswar Pujara who scored a marathon century – 143 off 362 balls assessing the pitch said that it was a lot different to the one in Kolkata. “Coming to this particular wicket, it was difficult to score runs as it was on the slower side. It wasn’t easy to get boundaries and we had to rotate the strike, whenever we got some opportunities, we tried playing some shots. But overall, it was a tough pitch, where you might not get out but it was also difficult to score runs.
“I think, going forward in this game, the ball has started turning and we are hoping day four the spinners will come into play and at the same time, there is variable bounce for fast bowlers, Ishant and Umesh.”
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