GALLE: Cricket manager Asanka Gurusinha painted a grim picture for his team as they faced a tough opening day of the first Test at the Galle International Stadium where they lost the services of a key player to injury and saw India rattle up an impressive 399 runs for the loss of three wickets.
“It’s a tough one to lose one of our main players. We are down with ten players against the world’s number one team,” said Gurusinha at the end of the day.
Asela Gunaratne injured his left thumb attempting to catch the day’s highest scorer Shikhar Dhawan when he was on 31 and has been ruled out of the Test. Dhawan seized the chance to score a career best 190 and put India firmly in the saddle.
“It’s a sad one and Asela will undergo surgery today. Most probably he will miss a minimum of four weeks. We will know in the next 48 hours about the time frame,” said Gurusinha.
“Asela has fractured his left thumb in three places. As soon as we saw the X-rays we knew it was very serious and we rushed him to Colombo. We received a call around 3:30pm saying that the surgeons had seen him and they will operate him tonight.”
Gunaratne came to the match with his left hand heavily plastered and Gurusinha explained: “Asela had hurt his webbing sometime back. The same area got hit and ended up with a fracture. He is out for a minimum of six weeks.”
Gurusinha said Gunaratne’s loss would put more pressure on the rest of the team.
“He was our in-form batsman and he is a fighter. We lost Asela as both batsman and bowler. He has been scoring a lot of runs and that’s going to put lot of pressure. Dilruwan (Perera) has scored runs against good sides at number seven. It’s a responsibility that we will take,” said Gurusinha.
“It’s a good track and it’s up to the players to come up with their plans. We need to first try and get them out tomorrow. We will probably bat somewhere tomorrow and need to capitalize. This is Galle and after scoring 600 runs you can still lose a Test match. You never know. Our batsmen have to just go out and play good cricket. Let’s see what happens on the last two days.”
Gurusinha admitted that the bowlers didn’t bowl well to plan and that they bowled to Dhawan’s strength.
“We have to be honest that we didn’t bowl well. Nuwan Pradeep was the most outstanding I thought. It’s a really good batting wicket. I heard Virat saying that it is a good batting wicket. We bowled on both sides of the wicket as well,” said Gurusinha.
“Shikhar Dhawan just took over the game. His 190 was one reason we find ourselves in this situation. It’s a fine effort by him. We know he wasn’t in the initial squad and then he came back into the side and showed the selectors what he is capable of. That is the way he plays. Good track for him. We also ended up bowling to his strength and he capitalized on that.”
Dhawan was heading for Melbourne not Colombo
India’s batting hero yesterday Shikhar Dhawan would not have been on the plane to Sri Lanka but heading for Melbourne had not Murali Vijay pulled out of the Indian side due to an injured wrist.
“My plans were to go to Melbourne and spend time with my family, do training and get fit for the one-day series,” said Dhawan after his heady knock yesterday. “I was in Hong Kong actually on holiday and from there I flew back to India and joined the team. That was my plan and I think destiny had a different plan for me.
“I was happy, of course, to make a comeback to the Test side. Unfortunately, Vijay wasn’t fit. I had a good run before this Test series and I just came with the same mindset and the same confidence and did the same process in the nets and got myself ready for this match. The wicket was also good and there wasn’t much spin over there. But it still got true bounce and good pace and I feel that I batted well too.”
Dhawan expressed his disappointment for missing out on his first double Test hundred.
“I would loved to have scored a 200 and 300 was a hundred runs ahead, I hadn’t thought about that. But more than that, I got out at the wrong time. It was the last over before tea. But the way I was playing, I was confident that I could clear the mid-off fielder and I was almost hitting a boundary per over. I was in that zone and I backed myself. Unfortunately it didn’t go my way.”
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