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Dhananjaya de Silva celebrates after scoring his century as Pakistan’s Shaheen Afridi looks on - AFP
Sri Lanka middle order batsman Dhananjaya de Silva (DDS) said that getting a permanent position in the batting order in the Sri Lanka Test team has been the biggest plus point of his international cricket career.
De Silva scored 122, his tenth century in his 50th Test match to help Sri Lanka recover from 54-4 to post a decent total of 312 on the second day of the first Test.
“I got a good start in my Test career and I gradually developed my game,” said De Silva at the end of the day. “The best chance I got was to settle down into a permanent batting position. I have been batting in the same position (at number six) for the last 3-4 years. That has been the biggest plus point in my career. When you have a permanent position, it is easy to make your own game plans.
” De Silva came to bat with Sri Lanka wobbling at 54-4, and played with such fluency to score a defiant century.
“The position I bat, I am expected to play this type of innings. If there is a top order collapse it is my responsibility. Thankfully I was able to do that. I know I can absorb the pressure with my experience of having played in 50 Tests and can control the game. That is why the captain and the management has trust in me and gave me the number six spot to bat. The position suits my game.”
De Silva said that having won the toss and batted first they should have got about 400 runs because the wicket is going to get difficult to bat on. “I think we were about 100 runs short.” Although Sri Lanka picked up five early Pakistan wickets, De Silva was of the view that they didn’t bowl well. “We have to control the run rate. Our bowlers should come out with a better plan tomorrow.” Pakistan’s top order batsman Shan Masood the Test at the end of the second day is at “even-stevens”.
“Coming into these conditions, one thing Sri Lanka does really well is to hold opposition to miserly run rates and they get the wickets in between as well,” said Masood. “We lost wickets but the way we played allowed us to stay in the game. Once we got that healthy partnership going the two teams are in an even-steven position.” Masood one of the key factors of Pakistan failing to win Test matches was that they didn’t score quickly enough.
“The last Test cycle gave us a big reflection and the management was very firm that one of the things that was lacking us not winning Test matches and not finishing off Test matches was that we weren’t scoring at such a high rate as the opposition. That has put us back in the game.”
“There has been a concentrated effort, some guys were given permission to go and play cricket in England but the rest of us had two camps in Lahore and in Karachi. The emphasis was on scoring runs just to sort of put the opposition under pressure. That’s what Saud (Shakeel) and Aghar (Salman) did.” – (ST)
