When South Africa Comes, We’ll Prepare Pitches Which Suit Us, Says Sanath Jayasuriya
Feb 11, 2017 at 3:43 PM
After suffering a defeat at the hands of South Africa in ODIs and Tests, Sanath Jayasuriya has said Sri Lanka will take revenge from the Proteas when they tour the country next year.
Jayasuriya, former Sri Lanka captain, said pitches during the South Africa tour were quite difficult and it was tough to bat on some tracks. He said:
“Some of the wickets during the series were very difficult. I am not trying to give excuses and I admit we played bad cricket. We should be up for any challenge. But having said that, I must mention that I have never seen so much of grass in South Africa especially when it comes to one-day cricket.
“In ODIs, you generally get wickets that are good for batting. Port Elizabeth, for example, is the slowest wicket in South Africa, but this time I found they had left a lot of grass.
“We were exposed to tougher realities. This is going to be the future of one-day cricket. There’s so much at stake with rankings and stuff and teams will prepare conditions that suit their teams. So the important thing is for us to prepare for the challenges ahead as well as we could,” Jayasuriya told Cricbuzz.com.
“You can say that. If we were exposed to wickets with grass, we have to pay them back with the same coin preparing conditions suited for us.”
It was a torrid tour for Sri Lanka as they were whitewashed in the Test and the ODI series (3-0 and 5-0 respectively) and only managed to win the T20I series 2-1.
Jayasurya further praised Upul Tharanga, who led the team in the ODI series after an injury to Angelo Matthews.
“It was tough on Upul. We missed Angelo due to injury and Chandimal, the vice-captain, was not getting any runs. So we asked Upul to lead the team and then we asked him to bat up in the order. I thought he handled things really well.”