It’s important how we bat today: Coach Silverwood

Coach Chris Silverwood 

Sri Lanka Head Coach Chris Silverwood said that it was an important day in the Test match tomorrow how Sri Lanka bats, after trailing Pakistan by 149 runs in the first innings of the first Test at Galle.

“From a situational point of view, we have to play well tomorrow. We have to put our best foot forward,” said Silverwood at the end of the day.

“It still looks a good surface, the odd one is turning but there is not a lot of pace in it. Tomorrow, if everything stays even, and it will be a decent surface, we have to come out and bat well.”

“We have batsmen who can come up with some big scores but at the same time we have to respect the fact that they have some good bowlers in their attack. As long as we do that, yes, we have got the players and the ability in that line up to come with a good score and see where we go from there.”

Silverwood was not too happy with the bowlers and the fielding.

“I don’t think we did our best with the ball. It’s good to see Ramesh (Mendis) get a five-wicket haul which he deserved, but as a unit we weren’t as good as we could have been. We managed to control their run rate to an extent today but unfortunately, we missed a couple of key chances that cost us.”

Double centurion Saud Shakeel said that when he went out to bat, he wanted to attack, otherwise if he had defended Pakistan would have got bowled out for 150.

Shakeel said that by attacking he was able to take the game deep.

“It wasn’t difficult to make the shift to go with an attacking mindset. We have been working to play this kind of attacking cricket back in the camp at home. The coaching staff backed me to play attacking cricket as well and I am pretty pleased with the effort.”

“When we were nine wickets down and Naseem Shah joined me, he said that there’s a chance for me to go for the double hundred. Lots of credit to him for backing me and not letting me panic.” – (ST)