Sri Lanka make two changes for second Test

Nishan Peiris bowling at nets in Galle watched by Ramesh Mendis (in background)

• Peiris debuts, Rathnayake returns
• New Zealand determined to bounce back

Sa’adi Thawfeeq reporting from Galle

Milan Rathnayake

New Zealand Head Coach Gary Stead

The usual concept is that you normally don’t make changes to a winning team, but in this instance, Sri Lanka has made two for the second Test against New Zealand beginning at the Galle International Cricket Stadium today, despite the fact that they won the first Test by 63 runs and hold a 1-nil lead in the two-match series.

One of the changes was a forced one with uncapped off-spinner Nishan Peiris replacing Ramesh Mendis, the other is the return of fast bowling all-rounder Milan Rathnayake for fast bowler Lahiru Kumara. Kumara bowled only 14 overs in the entire first Test. The same could happen to Rathnayake as well if the wicket starts to favour the spinners. The advantage of having Rathnayake is that he can bat unlike Sri Lanka’s 9, 10 and 11 whose total contribution was 13 in the first Test.

Sri Lanka certainly have a problem with their tail not contributing to the total and Rathnayake’s presence is expected to nullify that to some extent. In his debut Test series in England, Rathnayake proved quite a sensation scoring a half-century in his first Test and ending the series with 151 runs (avg. 30.20) and 10 wickets (avg. 32.10) to go along with 3 catches, some of them outstanding.

“We expect runs from them but more importantly if there is a batter on the other side to support him. If the batter gets out, we need some runs from the tail,” said Sri Lanka’s Batting Coach Thilina Kandamby. “If you take the stats, contributions from our numbers 9, 10 and 11 aren’t ideal. I think only one team is lower than us when you consider the contributions from the tail. At training, batting is compulsory for them. They work with the HPC (High Performance Centre) coaches to rectify their technical issues.”

Ramesh Mendis faced the axe after his poor bowling in the first Test which was even criticised by his captain. Peiris on his debut has a job to do, mainly containment to give the team’s key spinner Prabath Jayasuriya to work on the New Zealand batsmen and commit them to make mistakes.

Apart from the two changes to the bowling line-up the batting remains untouched, but there are concerns in both departments that saw Sri Lanka lose their grip in the game during sessions. 

“The mindset will be the same. We need to discuss where we went wrong. With batting, we had a collapse on day three. We’ve discussed it. It has been happening earlier too,” said Kandamby. “The players have been involved in a lot of cricket, and they should take the responsibility as they have played a lot of cricket in Galle. We knew the wicket would have a lot of assistance for spinners. We didn’t bowl well on day three. We have discussed that too.”

Like in the series in England, Sri Lanka has never made full use of winning the toss and batting first, but instead squandered opportunities of coming up with a challenging total in the first innings. In the first Test against New Zealand from 281-5 they lost the remaining five wickets for 24 runs to be dismissed for 305. 

“Setting the tone is key in Test cricket. In Manchester too we had a bad day with the ball. But we recovered well. That’s a good thing. But what is key is setting the tone. I am sure what we discussed will be put out in the middle,” said Kandamby.

Tall 6ft, 4ins tall fast bowler Will O’Rourke caused a lot of discomfort among Sri Lankan batsmen with his extra pace and bounce on the Galle pitch.

“He surprised us with his bounce. No one else in Galle has been able to get that much bounce,” said Kandamby. “We chatted about that. We planned a few areas where we can score runs off him. When in England we handled the short ball well. The bounce was inconsistent in Galle. We’ve trained for that. I am sure they will have a good plan for tomorrow.”

One of the ploys adopted by the New Zealand batters is to employ the sweep and reverse sweep constantly.

“When we see the stats, New Zealand swept more than us. That is a concern,” said Kandamby. “We played some good sweeps, but on this wicket, you cannot trust your defence. You have to be prepared to score runs. That is where you have to analyse and see where we can score runs. Sweep is a very good shot on this wicket.”

Having lost ground in the World Test Championship (WTC) standings with the first Test loss, New Zealand are determined to make up for it in the second.

“We need to play the session as it comes. We have to be a little bit better than Sri Lanka, they are very good in their conditions,” said New Zealand head coach Gary Stead. “We have got a squad that is really determined that we come away from the series with some WTC points. For us, it’s trying to play each ball and try to win sessions and placing Sri Lanka under pressure for long enough so that they make mistakes. They are very good as well and they deserve to be on the WTC table where they are. We are expecting to play our best cricket better than we did last week.”

New Zealand too is expected to make a couple of changes, but they have left the final decision till the morning of the match.

“We never want to lose Test matches. There was disappointment in our dressing room at the end of the match. It could have gone a different way as well,” said Stead. “I think it’s dangerous to make wholesale changes when things go too close. For us, every game we try to get a little bit better. The conditions here are very foreign to us, very different to what we get in New Zealand. It’s a case of adapting and changing. On the whole, the batting unit played well for most part in very difficult conditions. On the second last day for us to be still in with a chance was admirable.”

New Zealand had their work cut out when rain interrupted their practice session yesterday. Intermittent showers are quite frequent here and are expected during the match.

SRI LANKA PLAYING XI: Pathum Nissanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal, Angelo Mathews, Kamindu Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Kusal Mendis (wk), Milan Rathnayake, Nishan Peiris, Prabath Jayasuriya, Asitha Fernando.