SL vs NZ | Home defeat against England led Sri Lanka to rethink plans, reveals Dimuth Karunaratne
Despite registering a significant 2-0 win in South Africa, Sri Lanka's 0-3 whitewash by England at home in 2018 had given them the biggest lesson, something they would rethink before the next series against New Zealand. Skipper Dimuth Karunaratne is focussing on how to stop conceding too many runs.
Amidst Sri Lanka's hullabaloo over Test captains came a ray of hope in the form of Dimuth Karuraratne who led Sri Lanka to a 2-0 victory in South Africa this year. The board saw so much potential in Karunaratne that he was made the captain of the World Cup team despite not playing a single ODI in four years.
Karunaratne has now suggested he would encourage his young bowlers to bowl tighter than they did against England. "When we played against England, we kept attacking them too much with our bowlers, and we couldn't stop the runs," Karunaratne was quoted by ESPNCricinfo ahead of the first Test against New Zealand.
"But we have that experience with [the loss against] England now, and we have some new plans. In these conditions, rather than giving away a lot of runs, we need to dry them up. Even though we lost the toss in all three of those games, we still had a good chance, and I think this is where we made the mistake. If their batsmen attack us, we need to know how to deal with that, " he added.
The Sri Lanka captain further spoke about the importance of drying up runs up in the first Test since the pitch is more batting-friendly than it usually is in Galle. Frequent rains mean the pitch has remained undercover for a long time and it won't be as dry as it is usually at Galle. Moreover, the inclusion of Angelo Matthews might help the team put up a healthy score.
"Angelo and Dinesh Chandimal are in this squad now, so there might be a few changes to the top order that played in South Africa. It's different conditions as well here. We have to pick the best batsmen to counter spin. I think it will be a good wicket for the batsmen, but because we haven't been able to see the pitch properly over the last few days, we can only make those decisions about selection tomorrow morning," Karunaratne concluded.
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