Rex Clementine in Cape Town
After Sri Lanka suffered their second worst ever defeat in Test cricket in terms of runs in the second Test against South Africa here in Cape Town, captain Angelo Mathews said that the team had a lot to learn from the opposition opener Dean Elgar.
Brilliant Dean Elgar keeps Sri Lanka at bay
Left-handed opening batsman Dean Elgar stroked his career-best knock of 129 to lead the South African batting effort against Sri Lanka on day one in the second Test in Cape Town.
Elgar, the 29-year-old left-handed batsman batted for more than five hours after Sri Lanka put South Africa in on a greenish wicket on the opening day of the second Test.
“Dean Elgar batted brilliantly to get a hundred on that particular surface. It was tough to bat on in the first couple of days. It was seaming and moving around off the deck. He left a lot of balls. The way he batted is a lesson to learn for all of us. Yes it was never going to be easy on that wicket. It had a little bit of bounce and pace and seam,” Mathews told journalists.
“He was leaving a lot of balls. He scored off whatever he got on his legs. He’s keeping it pretty simple. He has made us work extremely hard for his wicket. He’s been in good rhythm. As much as we want to get him out, we’d like to take a few lessons off him on batting in these conditions.”Mathews added.
Sri Lanka’s tactics of attacking right from the start have backfired in both Tests as batsmen were dismissed without getting their eye in. Mathews urged a balance between attack and defense from his players.
“Batting is always about scoring runs. You should have that balance, but you need patience as well as aggression. There will be phases when you will face a guy like Philander or Abbott who will not give you a loose ball. You need to try and work that situation out. You do need to look for the bad ball, but that is going to be very rare. We need to tighten our game more.”
Mathews assured that Kusal Mendis will get a longer run in his number three position and was confident that the investment will pay off in the future. “As of now we are keen to give them a longer run. We can’t chop and change people. Especially in Test cricket we need to have a settled batting line up. You’ll make the change when and if needed. Yes number three has been a worry for us. Now that Kusal Mendis is there – he’s a free-flowing batsman, but we all need to tighten up our games. You can’t really compare Sangakkara with Kusal Mendis as of now.”
Sri Lanka was shot out for scores of 110 and 224 in the second Test with not a single batsman scoring a half-century.
“You need long hours of concentration and you need to put the runs on the board to give our bowlers a chance. The bowlers have been going pretty well. It’s just that the batters have been letting the whole team down. We need to take responsibility as a batting unit, put runs on the board, and see how it goes.”
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Sri Lanka now has six days to regroup before the final Test at Wanderers in Johannesburg. Mathews will be hoping that the batsmen will step up for the challenge.
“We’ve been working hard in the nets trying to leave a lot of balls. That fifth, sixth stump has been troubling our batters quite a lot. We can’t just say we are used to slow, low conditions. We’ve got to come and play well in foreign conditions as well. Most of the teams do struggle when they go to foreign conditions – it’s not only us. But we just want to concentrate on our performance. We can’t always think of going to foreign conditions and say we are not familiar with them and lose games. We’ve worked really hard but it hasn’t come off well. We’ll make sure that we work harder. The only solution, as I said, is long hours of concentration.”
