Sri Lanka expected to go hard at Pakistan to level series

Former Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews displays his skills at football during a training session at the SSC watched by team mates Dhananjaya de Silva, Dilshan Madushanka, Dinesh Chandimal and Kamindu Mendis (back to the camera)

Pakistan players Shaheen Shah Afridi (seated), Hasan Ali and Naseem Shah during a practice session at the SSC 

• Pakistan playing new brand of cricket to become No. 1
• Second Test at SSC today

By Sa’adi Thawfeeq

Sri Lanka head coach Chris Silverwood expects his team to show improvement in all three departments and go hard at Pakistan in the second cricket Test beginning at the SSC grounds today.

One-nil down in the series after losing the first Test at Galle by four wickets Sri Lanka needs to win this game to level the two-match series and pick up their first points in the new cycle of the ICC Test Championships.

Sri Lanka are playing their first Test match at this venue after five years. The last time they played at the SSC, Sri Lanka lost to England by 42 runs and Silverwood was England’s bowling coach.

“I know what to expect from this venue,” said Silverwood at the pre-match press conference yesterday. “From a players’ point of view it is great that we are playing at a different venue. From a coaching point of view, if you want to be good and competitive all round the world, you have to learn to play under different conditions.”

“Just giving us one condition in Galle all the time is not particularly productive in helping this squad of players grow because we will be playing Test matches in different conditions. We have to be prepared to handle that and be well equipped. Playing in different grounds in Sri Lanka will help us do that.”

Sri Lanka has played their last seven home Tests at Galle, a venue which is favourable to their spinners.

“The motivation is there. The players know how important it is to be picking up Test points and how important it is to win at home as well,” said Silverwood. “If you want to be a top team you have to continually improve all the time. To do that you have to reflect honestly, find ways forward and find the right combinations.”

“Listening to the chat in the dressing room, this game they are going to come out fighting and push much harder. If anything, I want to see the players come out of their shells and have the confidence to do that. Confidence is to go to the middle and show how good they are and what they can do. Through that performance everything will improve.”

One of the key areas that Sri Lanka have concentrated on improving is their fielding which proved costly in the first Test.

“If we analyse the last Test match, if we are honest, we fell short in all three departments. I will be looking for improvements in all three departments in this Test match,” said Silverwood.

“The dropped catches proved costly. This is not the first time it’s happened. We need to make sure we capitalize on good starts and with the ball in hand we were good only in patches. There were stages when we let them get away. At one point they scored at five runs an over, we need to drag that back.” Silverwood, a former fast bowler for England, gave credit to Pakistan’s two new ball bowlers Shaheen Shah Afridi and Naseem Shah.

“First of all you’ve got to accept that the two fast bowlers that Pakistan have are very good. They are good at their craft, they have good pace and they don’t give many runs away,” said Silverwood.

“One thing they can do is hammer at a length, hard and skilfully time and time again. If they go to bounce it their bouncers are accurate. We have to give a lot of credit for the way they operate. They make life difficult for any batting line up in the world. I’ve seen it abroad as well.

“If anything we have to be ultra-positive. We need to make sure our footwork is positive, the decision-making is strong and find a way to combat these guys. They are good bowlers and they will come at you hard in that first hour. From a spin point of view both groups struggled with spin in the last two innings. It will be a battle of wits to see who will play spin better.”

Pakistan head coach Grant Bradburn said that having overcome the tough examination at Galle, his players were prepared to face new challenges like playing at a new venue.

“This ground is going to be a different examination for us, different skills required. Certainly we need to adapt to the conditions that we find on each of the days and on each phase of the game,” said Bradburn.

“We were very proud of the way Pakistan played in Galle. The brand of cricket that we played is something that we’ve been working on. We feel we had an obligation to not only win for our fans back home but also in the way we went was also important. We want to entertain, we want to be dynamic and we want to be true to who we are as people.”

“By nature the Pakistan team are fighters, warriors, they want to show their skills. From our staffing point of view we are working hard to release those skills. What we saw in Galle was what we knew all along, a lot of skills hiding under the surface. We are working hard to give the team the freedom to use those skills at the right time.”

“We want to be number one in the world and to do that we need players in the top 10 in the world. We have a few, we want more. We also want to have number one skills in the world. Our mentor is always working on that.”