Out-of-form former skipper Mahela Jayawardane yesterday said that Sri Lanka has a great chance of winning the series against Pakistan if they showed the same character that they showed in the drawn first test in Abu Dhabi.
Speaking to reporters after morning net trainings sessions at the Dubai Sports City, the 36-year-old rued that Sri Lanka turned the first test into a potential winning position after being pushed back firmly on the first couple of days.
“There’s a good chance we can win the series. We won the last series against Pakistan at home by 1-0. It’s really important that we did well in the first match, having not played tests in so long. To be in such bad situation against Pakistan and then to comeback was really good. But that’s over now, and we have to go and look at this next pitch and start again. If we do that it shouldn’t be hard to win here,” Jayawardane said.
Sri Lanka played once in Dubai and Pakistan won comprehensively by nine wickets in 2011 but Jayawardane said the team will carry lots of confidence to the second test starting on Wednesday.
“We got back into the game and that’s what Test cricket is about. Different things happen on different days. When we are behind, we have to show a little character and we did that, even turning it into a potentially winning situation. That was a great boost of confidence, particularly for the young players who are getting that experience,” he said
Pakistan with a 179-run first innings lead were in with a great chance of going for the kill but a brilliant second innings rally by Sri Lanka helped them not only to save the game, but also to put them in with a chance of winning.
“The way our batsmen played in the second innings was really good, especially Angelo (Mathews), (Diensh) Chandimal, (Kumar) Sangakkara, Kaushal (Silva) and Prasanna (Jayawardane). I thought our fast bowlers were very good. If we can help develop those two bowlers, I don’t think it will be hard to win overseas Tests in the future,” Jayawardane added.
He also said Sri Lanka needs to handle spinner Saeed Ajmal well if they are to challenge Pakistan and steal a win.
“We’ve played a lot of cricket against Saeed Ajmal. He is a good bowler and someone who can really make an impact against us. He’s a trump bowler for his team, and we knew that if we batted well against him, we could remove that threat to some extent.
The younger players batted really well against him, so hopefully we can continue that, but he is a very good bowler,” he said.
Wicket-keeper batsman Prasanna Jayawardane, who hit an unbeaten 63 in the second inning whilst stating that he was pleased with his comeback knock after a year-long lay-off, believed that he handled Ajmal particularly well.
“He is a very good spin bowler with lots of variations. I read him well and I believe being a wicket keeper did help me,” he said.
