Dinesh Chandimal laments poor batting show for Sri Lanka's heaviest defeat in Tests
BCCI
Sri Lanka skipper Dinesh Chandimal has stated that his team's inability to post a decent total in the first innings after winning the toss in Nagpur was the major reason behind the loss to India. Chandimal has also added that he was heartbroken after Sri Lanka's heaviest ever defeat in Tests.
Sri Lanka lost as many as nine wickets in just over a session on Monday to succumb to their heaviest ever Test defeat. The idea of saving the Test was always going to be a distant expectation for Sri Lanka, but their batsmen showed no intention of making an effort as they lost as many as seven wickets in the extended opening session. In the first innings, on a deck which was more batting-friendly that Kolkata, the Lankan team could only muster a score of 205 runs which was the primary reason for the loss.
"There's no excuse if you can't make 400 runs in the first innings. You can't compete against any team without a decent first innings total. We are playing world's best-ranked team. We won the toss and the best conditions in a Test match is the first three days. We spoke of the need to take the game to the final day. That's the only way to let the opposition panic and put pressure on them," Chandimal said in an interview with Cricbuzz.
"We know that they are playing only four bowlers. If we could have taken their bowlers into the third spell, they will be in trouble because they miss that fifth bowler. They are also human and fatigue will take to them. That was our plan but the execution was horrendous."
An innings and 239-run win is the joint-biggest margin of win for India, equaling the victory against Bangladesh in Dhaka in 2007. This was also Sri Lanka's biggest innings defeat, surpassing the innings and 229 runs loss in Cape Town in 2001. Chandimal understandably was frustrated by the same and rued team’s failure in executing their plans on the field.
"I am really disappointed as captain. We talk a lot of these things at team meetings and stuff. But when we go out to the middle, we fail to execute them. We have experience and there are some good young players, but we fail to get into good form," Chandimal noted.
"Test cricket is much to do with temperament. You can't play Test cricket like you play ODI and T20 cricket. In Tests, you get a variety of situations. We can not get away by saying that we need to play our natural game. Sometimes according to conditions and situations, you need to adapt and if you don't do that, it will be tough for us.”
