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DUBAI: Skipper Dinesh Chandimal praised the fighting spirit and ability to learn from mistakes which lifted his players to a series whitewash over Pakistan in Dubai on Tuesday.
Barely two months ago Sri Lanka were routed 3-0 at home by world number one Test team India, but Chandimal said his players and management switched gears both on and off the field.
“We are over the moon,” said Chandimal who won his first series as captain. “Those were tough times for everyone but we learn a lot of things from that India series as a team and as individuals.
“The main thing is our attitude and it makes lot of difference so everyone put their heart and soul in the practices, so when they come to the match they did well.
“It was a tough series against India but we learnt a lot from it. The boys executed the game plan really well in this series. We knew when we came today that Dilruwan [Perera] and Rangana [Herath] would do the job.”
The series win allowed Sri Lanka to replace Pakistan at number six in Test rankings, pushing their opponents to seventh.
Off-spinner Perera finished with 5-98, his fifth five-wicket haul, a performance Chandimal said was also praiseworthy.
“We knew Dilruwan was struggling in the Indian series. He did not take any wickets so before we came here we spoke to him and gave him confidence and he was successful,” said Chandimal.
Pakistan captain Sarfraz Ahmed accepted his team was below par in the series.
“I got to learn a lot as captain. We came close in both matches, but we haven’t played good cricket and that’s why we have lost the series,” said Sarfraz, who captaining for the first time in Tests after the retirement of long-serving Misbah-ul-Haq earlier this year. “Sri Lanka played much better cricket than us and we were let down by batting because we didn’t play big innings and that is what cost us.
“We made many mistakes in the series but this was my first Test series as captain and it was pretty tough.”
The Pakistan captain justified the decision of not playing with two spinners in the series.
“You could say we should have played with two spinners here but the bigger problems we got was of batting.
“You could say we’ve played and won with two spinners here before, but at the moment, we felt our fast bowling was more experienced.”
Published in Dawn, October 11th, 2017
