With Pakistan’s knack of coming up with a superlative performance now and then, it was on full display during the final session of the ongoing second Test’s third day in Dubai.
Sri Lanka’s fast bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake rightly said one should expect the unexpected from the team which recently won the Champions Trophy against all the odds.
After being all out for 262 in reply to Sri Lanka’s first innings total of 482, Pakistan had their back against the wall. However, riding on Wahab Riaz’s sensational bowling, they crawled their way back into the game. Riaz took 3 for ten while Mohammad Abbas and Yasir Shah picked up a wicket each, as the hosts reduced the visitors to 34 for five at the end of the third day’s play. Moreover, Pakistan also managed to dismiss two of Sri Lanka’s most impressive performers in this series – Dimuth Karunaratne and Dinesh Chandimal.
“It was unexpected. The processes were lost in the midst. The boys had a belief saying that we needed to play out 15 overs. We were thinking of those 15 overs and not the processes. Hopefully, things will work out for us in the afternoon tomorrow,” Ratnayake told journalists.
“Pakistan are such a good side. They are unpredictable, and you expect the unexpected from them. We shouldn’t forget that they are a good bowling unit although Amir is missing. They bowled exceptionally well in those 15 overs. They certainly did bowl better than us in the last 15 overs on Saturday,” he added.
Sri Lanka had the chance to enforce a follow-on, but they decided against it. When asked about it, Ratnayake reasoned:
“The reason that we didn’t ask them to follow-on was because we felt that it was very hot and the bowlers wouldn’t have been able to go through the strenuous heat. We collectively thought that we should bat again.”
Ratnayake also praised Sri Lanka’s pacers Nuwan Pradeep and Suranga Lakmal for their performance in the series where they have made crucial breakthroughs.
“We worked on simple things. We worked on angles. We worked on areas on the fourth and fifth stumps. We had option ‘A’ and option ‘B’. If one thing didn’t work, we wanted to get back to the other. They executed that very well,” Ratnayake said.