Pakistan’s cricket coach Dav Whatmore wants to end his stint with Pakistan by winning his final Test against a country which he coached to victory in the ICC World Cup in 1996.
Whatmore was the coach of Sri Lanka when they went onto win the World Cup final against Australia in Lahore 18 years ago.
“I want to win, particularly against Sri Lanka, the team I coached for six years,” Whatmore told journalists after Pakistan lost the second Test to Sri Lanka by nine wickets in Dubai.
“I am keen on doing well against them, some of them are very good friends but when I enter the field we are enemies, so I am keen to finish the stint with a win,” Whatmore added.
Sri Lanka drew the first Test between the countries in Abu Dhabi against many odds after a poor performance in the first innings.
In the second Test in Dubai, after bowling out Pakistan for 165 runs in their first innings, Sri Lanka were in driver’s seat and went onto win by nine wickets.
“It was unfortunate to lose the toss as the wicket in Dubai was helpful to the pace bowlers,” Whatmore noted.
“The wicket had been under the covers for nearly 24 hours previously (because of rain) which meant the batsmen were in for a difficult period on day one. Our first innings total was always going to prove difficult to defend,” Whatmore further said.
Whatmore expected the conditions in Sharjah, where the third Test will be played, to be different.
“We always select the best possible eleven in relation to the pitch conditions. Unfortunately we could not play a second spinner and went in with three fast bowlers,” he said.
Pakistan are expected to play left-arm spinner Abdur Rehman while Sri Lanka are also likely to bring in an additional spinner. The Sri Lankans are unlikely to leave out any of their three seam bowlers, who did extremely well in the second Test. Instead, they are expected to draft in off-spinner Dilruwan Perera for one of the batsman. Perera will make his Test debut if selected for Sharjah.
The premier spinners of both teams – Saeed Ajmal and Rangana Herath – were outperformed by seamers of both sides.
Sri Lanka’s win in Dubai was their first away from home in two years. Their previous win away from home prior to that was in December 2011 against South Africa in Durban.
