The plot that went wrong at Galle
The annihilation it faced on Friday could force the Sri Lanka cricket team’s think-tank to restrategise ahead of the second and final Test against Australia starting at the same venue next Friday. Australia steamrolled the hosts inside two-and-a-half days to record a comprehensive 10-wicket win in a Test that lasted just 153.2 overs in all.
The beating was so painful that many thought Sri Lanka had shot themselves in the foot by preparing a wicket that turned and bounced as early as in the first hour of play. The question now is: did the Galle curator go too far to try and secure home advantage. Or was this what Sri Lanka had asked for, in a bid to spin the opposition out as they did in the 2016 series.
However, the pitch did not surprise Chris Silverwood, the coach, or Dimuth Karunaratne, the skipper, who blamed the batting and bowling failures of their charges for the carnage.
“We know it turns here. No surprise in the wicket,” admitted Silverwood, echoed by Karunaratne at the post-match press conference.
“We knew what we were getting. Our spinners failed to put pressure on opposition. We failed to push them.”
The Galle pitch usually stays okay for about a day, the reason why teams usually elect to bat first. It gets progressively worse. This time, however, it was turning as early as the fifth over. Nathan Lyon’s first ball in the match turned and bounced viciously, nearly finding the edge of Dimuth Karunaratne’s bat.
There was no denying that the Sri Lankans batted like they were on a suicide mission in the second innings, gifting their wickets in a hurry, trying to be “proactive” and “brave”, an approach successfully adapted by the Australians to negate the turn and bounce on offer.
“We found their spinners put pressure on us and made life difficult. Batsmen had to score runs and put pressure and when they are bowling well, it is difficult. Their batsmen fared pretty well. We missed out on 50 runs with the bat and gave away 50 more and we need to learn from these things,” Silverwood said.
After Australia conceded the ODI series, David Warner, the Australian opener, said that “extreme” turning pitches may hurt Sri Lanka in the Test series. Importantly, therefore, Australia came prepared for this. They seemed to have spent hours on training to sweep and reverse sweep, two strokes that they employed to good effect. Even the six-foot seven-inch Cameron Green, playing his first series in the island, did so beautifully in his game changing 77, not forgetting Usman Khawaja and Alex Carey.
Sri Lanka were out-strategised. Their spinners were wayward, and their batsmen played the old-fashioned way in the first innings when what was needed were street-smarts to play on a rank-turner, the way Usman Khawaja or Cameron Green did. Apart from Niroshan Dickwella, who took a positive approach in the first innings, others were conventional.
Sri Lanka took a different path in the second innings and seemed on track to erase a first innings deficit of 109 with openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Pathum Nissanka getting off to a brisk start, scoring 30 runs off the first four overs. But once Karunaratne was brilliantly caught behind off Lyon, the rest followed in procession.
Both the coach and the skipper were critical of Sri Lanka’s first innings batting which they blamed for the defeat. “That’s not what we were aiming at,” Silverwood said of the total of 212.
“Conditions were most favourable at that time and it deteriorated. If we keep doing that…we did it with Bangladesh. We have to find a way to not to do that again. Against good teams, when the ball is turning, they are going to put pressure on you. And if they find a chink in the armour they will go for it.”
Australia’s approach was critical for their success. As Pat Cummins, the skipper said they were “proactive” and “brave”. Their first innings score of 321 came off in just 70.1 overs—a healthy run-rate of 4.53.
“A couple of new words we’re using about our approach is about being proactive and being brave,” Cummins said after the match.
“We saw some really clear methods from all the batters. They might have been individually a bit different, but you saw everyone being really proactive, and putting pressure back on the bowlers. It’s something you’d normally talk about in one-day cricket or T20 cricket. But I think that’s the style over here that’s needed.”
Apart from Sri Lanka’s batting, one big concern is left-arm spinner Lasith Embuldeniya’s form. He was modest in Bangladesh and equally bad here, bowling 15 wicketless overs.
“He’s finding it tough at the moment,” Silverwood said of Embuldeniya.
“He’s getting a lot of support in the dressing room because he’s a great lad. If you look at the data that gets thrown back, you’ve got Nathan Lyon operating between 4.5 and 4.4 metres [distance from where the ball pitches to the stumps], and Embuldeniya was a good foot-and-a-half fuller than that on the first day, which made life easier for the Australian batsman. We’ve got to work on him holding a consistent length.”
“It’s not just him not holding a consistent length. As a group we need to do that well. You look at the various pace the bowlers bowl at as well. There’s a few factors there, one of which is confidence. We’ve got to give him support and get him back to where we know he can be. He’s trying hard. It’s just not happening for him at the moment.”
This might force Sri Lanka to bring in Praveen Jayawickrema, another left-arm spinner for the second match as Sri Lanka look desperately to put some points in the World Test Championships board.