Dhananjaya de Silva, Sri Lanka Test captain, opened up on his decision to bowl first against England in the recent second Test of the three-match series. This match was played at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London and saw England defeating Sri Lanka by 190 runs to go 2-0 up in the series.
De Silva put England into bat first after winning the toss at Lord’s and saw the hosts posting 427 runs with Joe Root and Gus Atkinson scoring centuries. In reply, Sri Lanka only managed 196 runs with Kamindu Mendis scoring 74.
In the second innings, England piled on the misery on Sri Lanka, scoring 251 runs with Joe Root scoring his second century of the match and setting Sri Lanka a target of 483 runs to win.
Sri Lanka was bowled out for 292 with fifties by Dimuth Karunaratne, Dinesh Chandimal, and skipper De Silva himself, losing the match by 190 runs and going 0-2 in the three-Test series.
“Our top order was struggling”- Dhanajaya de Silva on opting to bowl first in Lord’s Test
Following Sri Lanka’s disheartening loss to England in the second Test, captain Dhananjaya de Silva stated that the visitors attempted to control the play but were unable.
England’s score of 216 for 6 just after tea on that day vindicates de Silva’s choice. Almost every decision made in this Test was intended to safeguard veteran batters.
“We had two days to bat. The message was to bat simple and bat long. They always put pressure on us with their batting, we controlled a bit but that’s not good enough to win a Test match in England. I could have batted first but our top order was struggling, we wanted to see what the pitch is gonna do and bat next, that didn’t work at all,” ANI quoted Dhananjaya.
When questioned about Kamindu Mendis, the Sri Lanka skipper said that the allrounder displayed a stunning performance except for in the second inning.
“He’s been awesome in every innings except the last innings here. He’s getting runs very quickly batting at seven. We have to do better to get a win in England against this quality side. We have to do better in all three departments,” he added.
The third Test between England and Sri Lanka will begin on September 6 at the Oval in London.
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