Sri Lanka started their new era of cricket in emphatic manner with an innings victory over West-Indies in the post Sangakkara era at Galle. With the retirement saga of Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene within two years, Sri Lanka were searching for batters to take on the responsibility and deliver, but there was no one convincing enough to fill those shoes until lately, where Karunaratne and Chandimal scored the bulk of runs in the last few series, and Sri Lanka scored 400 plus in the first inning after some time.
"We haven't done it regularly. After Mahela (Jayawardene) and Sangakkara (Kumar) left we needed those guys to stand up and take responsibility and I'm glad they did it," said a happy skipper Angelo Mathews about their start of the new era.
"(We) should thank our coach. He worked a lot with our batsmen throughout the day in the last three weeks and it paid off," added Mathews about the hard work of their new interim head coach Jerome Jayaratne.
Nevertheless, in the bowling department it was the same old story all over again as ace spinner Rangana Herath took another 10 wickets haul while others chipped in with one or 2 wickets without any comprehensive performance. The 37 year old Herath, who is in the twilight of his career, has been the lead bowler for Sri Lanka and has been headache to opponents, as it was he who had lead the Sri Lankan attack post Murali era most of the time, guiding the islanders to victory almost single handedly. The veteran spinner is now just 12 wickets away from 300 wickets land mark.
Meanwhile, Angelo conveyed his frustration over off spinner Tharindu Kaushal who wasn't at his best, leaking 94 runs in 25 overs with just one wicket in the match. "Kaushal was pretty disappointing. He was not bowling at his best. We took a chance playing him. He can spin well so we need him to land his off spin on the spot which didn't happen. Fast bowlers did their best on these wickets," said Mathews.
"I thought he was pretty poor. He is working harder with Piyal (Wijetunga)" said Mathews who didn't have to bowl during the Test due to part time left arm spin of Milinda Siriwardene.
"We are pretty lucky to have a guy like Milinda Siriwardana. He bowled a lot of overs and I wasn't needed (for bowling)" said Mathews.
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