Sri Lanka's coach Dav Whatmore reflects on a missed opportunity to make history

Dav Whatmore National Coach

The last South African series was there for the taking. We had won convincingly in Galle and the South Africans had their backs to the wall. However, in the second test in Kandy, we let them back into the series in a match that we should have won. It was the turning point of the series and left us with plenty to ponder for the future.

The general feeling of the public in Sri Lanka appears to be that our greatest problem was an inability to finish off the tail. Whilst an element of this was true, I was actually more concerned with the fact that, having got on top of South Africa on numerous occasions, we failed to ram home the advantage.

On four occasions during that match we had gained the ascendancy, only to relax and let them back into the game. The first occasion was on the very first day, when we had reduced them to 34-5. However we let them off the hook and they scored 253.

Then, having posted 260-4 by the close of play on the second evening, which was a terrific achievement, we collapsed, and were bowled out 308. Instead of being in an impregnable position, South Africa still had hope. In their second innings we took early top order wickets, reducing them to 50-3 only to let them finish with 231.

When they were finally bowled out, we were asked to score 177, which was well within our grasp. Having lost early wickets, both Marvan Attapattu and Sanath for ducks, Arjuna pulled us back into the game with one of the best innings under pressure that I have seen for a long time. The match was there for the taking and we only needed 16 runs with 4 wickets remaining. Unfortunately we weren't up to it and lost all four for just 8 runs.

When you are on top you just cannot give the opposition a chance to get back into the game and we did that three times before the final day. We should have been in an impregnable position by day four. It still leaves a nasty taste in the mouth when you recall the key moments of that match, but it is a very vivid and harsh learning process for the team.

As a team we strive to get the little jobs done correctly. Each member of the team has to focus on completing his specific tasks. When you take care of the parts, the whole comes together naturally. However we were complacent and lost that discipline. The guys went onto autopilot and paid the penalty.

In the minutes after the match there was a feeling of nothingness and despair in the dressing room. The realisation that we had just thrown away the match, and as it turned out an historic series victory, was very bitter pill to swallow. But that is cricket and the players need to understand and learn from that experience.

Having come back down to earth with a thud we only had two days to prepare for the final and deciding test match. It was always going to difficult to fully lift the players and the feeling in the dressing room wasn't as high as we would have liked it to have been. Nevertheless they tried extremely hard and fought out a very convincing draw. In fact they showed a desire and fight that match that had not been evident in Kandy. Nevertheless we had drawn the series rather than won. An opportunity to defeat South Africa, for the first time in our test match history, had been missed.