Sri Lanka’s batting coach Grant Flower labelled the team’s batting performance on the opening day of the first Test against England at Galle yesterday as the worst batting performance he has seen from them.

“I’ve been with the team for a year and it’s the worst batting performance I’ve seen from our team. It’s purely mental. I don’t have enough reasons to explain that. Every single batsman should take the blame,” said Flower at the end of a horrendous first day for Sri Lanka.

“They’ve only got themselves to blame. One of the guys was unlucky – Dasun Shanaka – it came off (Jonny) Bairstow’s ankle, but the rest got themselves out. There was some decent bowling but the pitch isn’t a minefield so there are no excuses,” he said.

Asked what advice he can give the Lankan batters after such a dismal display, Flower said: “I can’t give much technical advice, I can only speak to them about the mental aspect and I’ve said what I was thinking regarding their dismissals. But I’ve only spoken to a few as well as the coach. I don’t know, I am at a loss for words, I’ve never seen us bat that badly. Whether it was nerves coming back from South Africa I don’t know. They know these conditions so well so they should have had a big advantage over England, but the England batsmen showed us this afternoon that there is nothing wrong with the pitch so far. It’s going to get worse and today it played well and we batted terribly.”

Flower said that Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow assessed the pitch better than the Sri Lankans.

“They are both very good players of spin and they adjusted to it accordingly. They put the bad balls away and they used the sweep well. They showed the Sri Lankans, who are all good players of spin, how to play well on a turning track. Hopefully we will take some lessons and bat a lot better in the second innings.”

England off-spinner Dom Bess, who returned career best figures of 5 for 30, said that Bairstow and Root have set the platform for a huge England total.

“Going into tomorrow hopefully we can build a massive score. We still got some proper players to come like Dan Lawrence and Jos Buttler, Sammy (Sam Curran), myself, Broadie (Stuart Broad) and Woody (Mark Wood). It’s about making sure that we drive the game forward and put ourselves in a really good position,” said Bess.

“Bowling in the subcontinent for the first time and to get off to a start like this with a tour of India also looming it does wonders to my confidence to have those wickets,” continued Bess.

“I’ve never got a five-for like this before, but I also bowled very well on other days and not taken any wickets. The more opportunities we created within the day worked really well for us. Broad and Sammy bowled upfront and set the tone earlier on for me.”

Bess said that most of the shots the Lankan batsmen played didn’t come off. “People or the media might say if it doesn’t come off they are rash shots, but our plans and what we discussed in the change room was spot on.” (ST)

Broad, Bess dismantle SL for 135