Confident Australia eye series sweep

Sri Lanka players get pep talk from Head Coach Sanath Jayasuriya before practice

• Sri Lanka hoping to make an impact in Karunaratne’s farewell appearance

Sa’adi Thawfeeq reporting from Galle

The beauty of Australia’s squad is that they have got resources to meet any condition that Sri Lanka can come up with for the second Warne-Murali Trophy Test starting at the Galle International Cricket Stadium today.

“I think we can make anything work if the conditions suit us. The beauty of the last game was we were able to change the spinners up. When you’ve got three frontline spinners you can change them up whenever someone gets a little tired or something’s not happening. I thought we did that well,” said Australian Captain Steve Smith at the pre-match media conference yesterday.

“I thought Mitchell Starc bowled exceptionally well with the new ball as well. He got three wickets for the game and could have got more. We’ve got plenty of options.”

Australia went with a 3-1 bowling combination – 3 spinners and one seamer which proved quite successful for them as they won the Test by an innings and 242 runs to go one-up in the two-match series.

As regards team selection Smith said, “Same as last Test, we’re going to wait pretty late and see what the wicket looks like. It looked a little bit drier yesterday, for two days out compared to the first one.”

Questioned whether Australia could go with a 4-spin attack by including uncapped left-arm spinner Cooper Connolly, Smith replied, “It’s possible, all options are on the table. We’ve got the resources here if we need it.”

Sri Lanka Captain Dhananjaya de Silva is hopeful that his batsmen can put behind their poor performance in the first Test and come up with a much better batting display.

“It was not a normal Galle wicket. We didn’t expect it to play so well in the first two days, but Australia managed to absorb most of our plans. After they got to 600plus we were always behind them,” said De Silva.

“I have always stated at all media conferences that whether we bat or bowl first, we must get at least 50% advantage to win. We couldn’t do it in the first Test. I have spoken to my players and told them that we must lift our game and do well in this Test.”

“A lot of batsmen got starts and got out. At least one or two batsmen must score 150, then others can bat around him and put up a big score. That’s what Australia did. Each time we tried to play an attacking shot we got out. Have to take a calculated risk to score runs to fields set by Australia and the line and lengths they bowled. There was a problem with our execution, we have been practicing and hope everything will fall right.”

As regards team selection, De Silva said that Pathum Nissanka will open the innings with Dimuth Karunaratne who will be playing in his 100th and final Test. Nissanka is expected to replace Oshada Fernando.

Other than that, there is unlikely to be any changes to the batting line-up. Sri Lanka will persist with the combination of 3 spinners and one seamer but there could be changes to who will fill those slots.

There is a possibility of Asitha Fernando being replaced by Lahiru Kumara and off-spin all-rounder Ramesh Mendis filling one of the three spinners’ berths. 

“We have not spoken about the bowlers’ combination, we just finished our practice session. We will have a team meeting in the evening and announce the side,” said De Silva.

With Karunaratne set to retire from cricket, De Silva said there were replacements but it was difficult to replace a batsman of Karunaratne’s calibre.

“We won’t get someone like Dimuth, his character and the way he plays is very difficult to emulate because he has made runs in difficult periods and scored over 7000 runs. There will be an impact but I hope we will get a good replacement for him.”

“When you look at the contribution he has made, he has proved that he is the best opening batsman. If you take his Test stats among the Sri Lankans he is among the top five. His contributions have been big. In the recent past he has shouldered the burden of captaincy during difficult times and taken the team forward. As captain I back him fully to make it a memorable Test for him.” 

Sri Lanka’s two most senior players Dinesh Chandimal (left) and Angelo Mathews prepare for batting session

Australians prepare for warm-up before practice