Sri Lanka’s tour of England couldn’t have begun on a worse note for sure. The Sri Lankans were battered miserably by a depleted Essex side in their warm-up the fixture, and the result yielded out from the warm-up game leaves plenty to ponder for the visitors. Sri Lanka on batting first, were bowled out for a below-par total of 254 on the very first day. Essex followed that up by posting a colossal 412-4 in 100 overs and gave the Sri Lankan bowlers a hard time in the middle.
Post the warm-up tie, Sri Lankan coach Graham Ford spoke about his side’s situation. Ford said that despite the alarming situation, he was confident of his team’s performance for the upcoming test series against England. In his interaction with ESPN Cricinfo, Ford said that he expected a better performance from Sri Lanka in the warm up game.
“There is no doubt that we could have done with the time out there,” Ford said. “We are going to require more time to adjust to the conditions. One or two of the batters showed some decent form and, pleasingly, there weren’t many soft dismissals, but without question we are going to have to work on how we play the swinging ball. The bowlers needed a bit of a gallop but I felt that, while we didn’t start great with the ball, there were patches yesterday where we bowled a hell of a lot better.”
Half-centuries by batsman Kusal Mendis and wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella has made things interesting with the two not being in Sri Lanka’s scheme of things for the playing XI initially. “It’s too early to be clear on the side,” Ford said. “Mendis and Dickwella, what’s exciting there is that they are both showing that they can play and are finding form, which is all you can ask in the early part of a tour. We have a bit of cricket to play, so we shall make decisions on things like who will keep wicket closer to the time. That’s one of the things that is frustrating about losing that time today.”
“We have a few questions we need to answer, and at Leicester, it’s important the batsmen show some real form. There’s nothing like time in the middle. We want big scores and we want them at the crease for long periods of time.”