Sri Lanka management lament missed opportunities

Wisden CricInfo Staff

April 29, 2003

Sri Lanka's captain Hashan Tillakaratne and coach Duleep Mendis lamented their side's poor fielding in the opening Test but praised the efforts of the bowlers and batsmen.

"I am very impressed with the batters how they came out and stuck to their game plan and managed to save this Test match," said Tillakaratne, who scored 144 in the first innings. "Everyone chipped in with big scores."

"I am also impressed with the way that the bowlers bowled on a placid batting track," he said. "It is just that we need to improve on our fielding and catching. We made a few mistakes in this Test and we want to rectify them and come back strongly in the second Test."

Mendis was particularly disappointed with the catching: "Without any doubt it was the catching that let us down in this Test. Maybe things would have been different if we had held on to our catches but it was a placid track."

"We dropped so many catches that at one stage I was thinking what was really going wrong because we had been doing a lot of fielding practice. I think it was the fitness levels. Even before the Test match, Alex (Kontouri) said that because the fitness levels were down we couldn't concentrate for long hours. It is something we got to improve and we've got to do it fast," he said.

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