Dinesh Chandimal missed the first Test due to a bout of pneumonia © AFP
Dinesh Chandimal will return to lead the Sri Lanka team in the second Test at the SSC, after recovering from a bout of pneumonia that kept him out of the first Test in Galle. Rangana Herath, who suffered an injury to his finger in the first Test, is being closely monitored.
“Dinesh should be fit, he actually played this (Sunday) morning and he has batted the last couple of days,” Sri Lanka cricket manager and selector Asanka Gurusinha said.
“We have to see how he is going to come up in the next couple of days because his finger is pretty sore,” Gurusinha said of Herath’s condition. “We will give him till the last minute to make sure that he is fit.
“The day before the Test we will see whether he can drift the ball, it will come down to that. If he can without pain he will play, otherwise we will have to look at different options. The finger is not swollen but it’s sore and painful.”
With Chandimal fit again, Danushka Gunathilaka is likely to be left out. In the absence of Chandimal, Sri Lanka had to drop Kusal Mendis one spot, to No. 4, in Galle.
“It’s for just one game, we pushed Kusal to four. Danushka was in form and you can’t bat him in the middle order. We couldn’t get him to open either because the openers were already there, that’s why we got Kusal to four for this Test. When Chandimal comes back, he will go back to No. 3 straight away. He is our no. 3 and we are grooming him for that position definitely,” Gurusinha said.
Sri Lanka has another slot to fill after the injury to Asela Gunaratne, who has been ruled out of the series with a broken thumb.
“We have Dhananjaya (de Silva) in the squad and we have Danushka as well,” Gurusinha said. “We haven’t looked at whether this is the squad we are going to have for the second Test. We will have a chat later today and see whether we will need someone from outside or what combination we are going to play. It comes down to whether we are going to play 6 or 7 batsmen, we will have to decide on that after looking at the wicket.”
Gurusinha said that the Sri Lankan batsmen didn’t execute their plans well in the first Test which led to their 304-run defeat.
“Getting 600 runs it always affects which is a difficult thing, but our batsmen on that track I don’t think they handled it well because it wasn’t a track for 291 to get in the first innings. That was a 400-run track,” Gurusinha said.
“Even on the fourth day it wasn’t doing much it wasn’t difficult when you see the way everyone batted. When you are playing the number one side, they are very patient they’ll bowl a good line and length and wait. They tested our patience and they won. They were good in that and we took more risks. Batting overall, when you look at it we didn’t handle it well.
Gurusinha said the pace at which cricket is played today it is difficult to draw Test matches. “These days in Test cricket, the game has changed a lot because of T20. They are playing it at a very fast rate getting 300-350 in a day is nothing new in Test cricket. Sometimes if you try to bat long, you can go into a negative frame of mind. You need to play positively but positively is not hitting every ball, it is playing according to your plans. Our execution of plans was the main problem.
“Nobody scored a hundred from our side in the last two Tests, even against Zimbabwe. That’s what we need. We need one of the top four batsmen to get 150 or 160 and a couple of others to get 70s and 80s. As soon as that happens it will give us a 400-plus total,” Gurusinha said.
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo