Jayasuriya plays in a team in which on the spiciest greentops they can realistically consider leaving out a spinner altogether and, in fact, he almost made that choice for this second Test. But the way this game has played out, if Jayasuriya had not taken 5 for 129 in the second innings, Sri Lanka would still have been in the match – even if marginally.
“Taking five wickets overseas is something I’ve been aiming for for a long time,” Jayasuriya said after the fourth day. “Getting wickets away from home was something I was worried about sometimes, because people would question my ability to do that. When we play away from home and in SENA [South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia] countries, my role is quite different. I always try to do what I can for the team. I am very happy that I was able to take five wickets in a place like South Africa.
Most of his success on the fourth day, when he took three wickets, including that of series best batsman Temba Bavuma, came from bowling over the wicket in the rough outside the leg stump of right-handed batsmen.
“It’s still a good pitch to bat on and it will be tomorrow too,” he said. “The decision was between bowling in areas that were still good for batting, or bowling in areas where there was some help on the surface. At that time, between the captain, the coach and the head coach, we used that strategy. decided to try [of bowling into the rough]And it was successful.”
Jayasuriya took 1 for 84 on a very grassy surface where there was not much turn in the first innings. But he revealed that he was unhappy with his bowling in that innings, and made changes to be in better condition for the second innings.
“There was a technical error, and I was able to come in the next day and do a little training, and although I wasn’t able to get it 100% right, I was able to get it about 90% right.”
Jayasuriya is likely to have another role in this Test – with the bat, he is the next man up. If Sri Lanka are to pull off an unexpected win from this position (they are 143 runs behind, with five wickets in hand), they will almost certainly need runs from that too.
“Kusal Mendis and Dhananjay de Silva have the experience and ability to do that [win the game],” Jayasuriya said, “The first hour tomorrow is important. That hour will decide where this match goes. If we win that hour, we will definitely win the game. We only need 143 runs and between these batsmen and the tailenders we have to plan and figure out how to get there.”
Leave a Reply