You can’t tolerate poor batting -Vaas

GALLE: Sri Lanka’s fast bowling coach Chaminda Vaas came down hard on the Sri Lanka batsmen for not putting up a decent batting performance on the second day of the first Test against India at the Galle International Stadium yesterday.

“If any side gets 600 there is pressure on the opposition team’s batsmen. But even so, we didn’t bat well. Some batsmen got out early. That’s something that a team can’t tolerate – but that’s the nature of the game,” said Vaas at the end of the second day.

“At the moment Angelo Mathews and Dilruwan Perera are batting well, so tomorrow hopefully they will stay at the wicket and bat well until lunch. If we can bat until tea we might be able to escape danger. That’s what we should aim to do – to bat well in the first two hours,” he said.

Sri Lanka requires a further 247 runs with effectively four wickets in hand to wipe out the deficit and make India bat again.

Vaas stated that Sri Lanka came to this Test with a few plans but the way the match went and given the state of the pitch they had to change their plans.

“Some of the things we did didn’t go well. We did as well as we could. When we saw that the wicket was really good for batting we thought of surprising the Indian batsmen by bowling a few bouncers,” Vaas said.

The short ball proved very effective as Pradeep and Lahiru Kumara managed to get some purchase out of the flat track.

Pradeep produced his best spell of fast bowling to take a career best six wickets for 132 runs off 31 overs to keep India down to a total of 600 after they had resumed at 399-3. Kumara ended up taking 3 for 131. It was the first time in his career that Pradeep had taken a five-for.

“When you get four wickets, you have to bowl 15/16 overs, and you’re very tired after that. If you’re bowling more than that you still have to maintain that intensity and still bowl quickly. I think I did that,” said Pradeep who had seven four-fors before yesterday.

“I maintained that intensity and bowled fast in my later spells. I think I couldn’t get to that fifth wicket before because of tiredness.”

Lasith Malinga was the last Sri Lankan fast bowler to take five wickets or more in an innings in a Test match in Sri Lanka with 5/50 against India at Galle seven years ago which happened to be Muthiah Muralitharan’s farewell Test.

We are well poised at this stage - Pujara

Cheteswar Pujara who contributed 153 towards India’s total said that he doesn’t need extra motivation to score hundreds.

“Whenever I play cricket, whether it’s at international level or first class, I enjoy the game. I don’t need any extra motivation because I love playing this game. I love my batting, so whenever I get the opportunity to score runs or do something on the field, I always like the challenge and I’m always very well prepared,” said Pujara. “Before any Test series or first-class games, I work hard on my preparation. Whenever there is a challenge, I’m always up for it.”

Speaking on the present context of the Test, Pujara said that India was well placed at this stage of the game.

“The key for us, even in the last session was that we’ve bowled really well. Our bowlers are bowling good lines and lengths. On this wicket, you know what areas to bowl on, even the batsmen they had some inputs on what kind of line and length we can bowl,” said Pujara. I think tomorrow onwards, we’ll see a little more turn on this wicket. The pitch is drying up, so there will be more assistance tomorrow onwards.

“When you’re playing at international level, it doesn’t matter whether the wicket is flat or whether there is some assistance for the bowlers. You always want to score big runs and put up a big total. “As a team, we always want to win matches whether we play against a good team or not. If they are not playing well at some stage, we would still like to dominate because we’re the number one team in the world. We would like to maintain that standard. We have scored enough runs, and we’ve got five wickets today. We are very well poised at this stage.”