“Batsmen have to convert their scores into centuries – 30 and 40 are not enough,” Jayasuriya said. “It’s tough on these wickets, but on a tour like this at least two batsmen have to score centuries. We didn’t get that. We only got two 80s. I think the batsmen know the value of centuries on the road by now.” It has happened recently that despite playing in a place like England, we missed it this time.
“Although the senior batsmen put in a lot of effort, I think if they assess themselves individually they will realize that it was not enough.”
“Kamindu Mendis is a key player,” Jayasuriya said. “Except this series, he was scoring runs in almost every Test match. If you saw the way he batted in this series, he was still very confident. Especially in his last innings, you saw that. You can do it.’ A batsman is not expected to score 50 or 100 runs every innings – that’s why you have six or seven batsmen, as a player, he is a quality player, if he has shortcomings, he Works with batting coach to overcome them.
“I know the opponents are quite worried, and South Africa were too. Now, he will have to work hard to counter that. But I would love to see a player like him in the team – he can score at a run-a-ball. And play positively. I have told everyone to play their natural game and play positive cricket.”
It was only after the Gkebarha defeat that he felt that the match was lost at a crucial time. The first of these was the second morning, on which South Africa had added 89 runs through their last two partnerships.
“In that first innings, when we got eight or nine wickets, we allowed them to score about 40 runs more.
Another period was on the third morning, when Sri Lanka lost five wickets, trailed the previous day by 116 runs, and had seven wickets in hand.
“We couldn’t afford those wickets. We could have had a big lead in the first innings, and we let the match slip away a bit that morning.”
And then on the fourth day, there were a few occasions when Sri Lanka could not convert their momentum into a definite advantage. At lunch, he had allowed South Africa to score 282 runs for 8 wickets, but allowed the number 9, 10 and 11 batsmen to score 35 more runs. Later that day, they had reached 117 for 3 before losing two early wickets.
“25-30 extra runs from their tail-enders in the second innings also hurt us. In the second innings, when we gave away two extra wickets in the evening session. If we had a chance to fall only three wickets today, it would have been our batting unit. There may have been a big change in the world, it is in those small places where it got away from us.”
Andrew Fidel Fernando is a senior writer for ESPNcricinfo. @afidelf
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