Sri Lanka on Tuesday (July 11) registered an innings and 39-run victory over Australia in the second Test at Galle to level the series 1-1.

Apart from the home team’s dominance, the Test match grabbed the headlines for the mass protest that swarmed the Galle ground.

After the game, Australia skipper Pat Cummins opened up on the mass protest and how the impact of the tour has not been lost on the visiting side.

“The protest yesterday, you couldn’t escape it. We’ve got list of messages from back home saying, ‘how is it? Hope you’re okay.’ We’ve felt totally fine,” Cummins said in a video posted by Cricket Australia.

“You could just hear kind of when it changed from a protest to a party.

“And chatting to some of the staff around the hotel and a couple of drivers. They are doing it really tough. They are having one day eating, one day off eating to try and feed their kids. It’s really tough,” he added.

After Australia thumped Sri Lanka in the first Test by 10 wickets, the hosts staged a staggering comeback and humiliated the tourists. Batting first, after winning the toss, Australia had a decent outing in the first innings. On account of Steve Smith’s unbeaten 145 and Marnus Labuschagne’s 104 runs, they posted a total of 364 runs.

In reply, Sri Lanka rode on half-centuries from skipper Dimuth Karunanratne (86), Kusal Mendis (85), Angelo Mathews (52), Kamindu Mendis (61) and an unbeaten double century from Dinesh Chandimal (206) to pile up a mammoth 554 on the board, taking a huge first-innings lead of 190 runs.

Prabath Jayasuriya, who took 6 wickets in the first innings, claimed the same number of wickets in the second essay as Sri Lanka bundled out Australia for just 151 runs to win the match by a handsome margin.

“It really hits home how lucky we are to be travelling the world first of all, but also in some ways, it’s more than just being here to play cricket,” Cummins said.

“You see the impact it can have. So it hasn’t been lost on our group. It’s something we speak about quite a bit,” he added.