After ending the five-Test losing streak against Virat Kohli & Co., Sri Lanka skipper Dinesh Chandimal said the hard-earned draw would give a much-needed lift to the players’ morale.
Sri Lanka had arrived in India after the 3-0 whitewash at home a few months ago. Before that, the Islanders had lost the last two Tests of the series in 2015 and needed to play out of their skin to arrest the slide against the world number one side. Well, the visitors managed to end their losing streak with a dodgy display in the first Test at the Eden Gardens. In fact, Dinesh Chandimal & Co. had India on the mat for the first four days of the match before the hosts showed their class on the final day and had almost registered a win. But the bad light came to Sri Lanka’s rescue, and the game was called off when Sri Lanka were reeling at 75 for 7.
Chandimal said his team had planned meticulously before the series began and spoke on the team’s mindset.
We planned a lot before we came. We always said that let’s play to win. That was a big help to get the players’ morale up. Apart from the last session, we put India under a lot of pressure. Change was that we believed we could compete. After we were whitewashed by India, we addressed a few areas. We felt that we played without any purpose. Before we went to UAE, we decided that we were going to win. We wanted to take the Test match to the final day. That was a big difference,” he told Cricbuzz.
Chandimal also heaped lavish praise on his Indian counterpart Virat Kohli and felt that his team could have won the game had they managed to get rid of Kohli early. After the openers helped India to wipe off Sri Lanka’s 122-run lead, India were in a precarious position after another failure from the middle-order. However, Kohli held firm from end one and played a sublime knock of 104 off just 119 balls to bail the team out of trouble.
“He is their main batsman. We always try to get him early and we discuss a lot on him at team meetings. Had we dismissed him cheaply today, we could have probably won this match. He changed the game. Certainly one of the finest batsmen around. He played some amazing shots today,” Chandimal said.
Chandimal further lavished praise on India’s pace attack which had put India on the verge of an improbable win.
“Certainly one of the best fast bowling attacks that I have faced. They are three different fast bowlers. Bhuvi sends the ball either way. Shami takes it away from the right-handers. Umesh brings the ball into the right-handers. That variation makes it tougher. What you didn’t see among Indian fast bowlers earlier was the pace and now they bowl with genuine pace,” he said.
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