Sri Lanka head coach Mickey Arthur said poor batting has yet again let his team down in the second and final Test against England, as the hosts were beaten by Joe Root and his team by 6 wickets in Galle to clean sweep 2-0 the two-Test series on Monday (January 25).
After losing the first Test, Sri Lanka made a great start to save the second Test, as they first managed to put up commendable 381 in the first innings, thanks to a brilliantly century by Angelo Mathews and fifties from Niroshan Dickewella and Dilurwan Perera.
Well, Sri Lanka continued their fight in the next 3 days at Galle, bowling out England for 344 in their first innings, but then suffered a shocking batting collapse in the second innings as the hosts could manage only 126 in the second innings and tourists chased down 164 easily to clinch the Test series 2-0.
After his team’s whitewash by England in the home Test series, Arthur said the hosts were really in a good position in the final Test but another poor batting show cost them, saying the Islanders need to be “ruthless” and learn to put their foot on the neck of the opposition once they take lead in the game.
As reported by ESPNCricinfo, Arthur said: “We fought and fought and fought for three days and got ourselves in a really good position, and in two hours we proceeded to throw it away. It was poor batting. It's something I'm going to sit and talk with the players about now.
When we lead the game, we've got to be able to put our foot on the neck of the opposition and we didn't do that. That today just wasn't good enough. We've got to learn to be ruthless.”
On Day 4 of the second Test, England spinners Jack Leach and Dominic Bess wreaked havoc on the Sri Lankan batters as the duo took eight wickets between them to bundle them out for 126 in 2nd innings.
However, despite not setting a competitive challenge for England, Sri Lanka gave them a tough time, as England found them in danger as they were once at 89/4 while chasing 164, but Dom Sibley and Jos Buttler stitched an unbeaten stand of 75 to take the tourists over the line by six wickets.
On the gameplan to defend the paltry total, the Lankan head coach noted: “That was nowhere near our gameplan. Our gameplan was to absorb pressure, grind away, and grind out a couple of sessions to make sure that we got ourselves into a very good position to push for the win tomorrow. That was our strategy.
We had a long chat about that this morning. We used the blueprint of our second innings in the first Test match as something that we wanted to base our innings on. Somewhere it's gone horribly wrong. That's something I'm going to dig up and find tonight.”
Arthur signed off by saying, “This isn't the first time that it's happened, and it's something I need to look into with the team. We let it slip in one disastrous session. Much like in the first Test when we let slip in the first innings again.
We can't afford as a team to have those poor sessions. We've got to get our good and our bad closer together. The game was there for us to take and we didn't take it. Extremely disappointed with that.”
(With ANI Inputs)
