Pothas credits Indian bowlers

By Paritosh Pramanik
NAGPUR, Nov 24

SRI Lankan coach Nic Pothas credited Indian bowlers for their superb bowling on a wicket that has no demons. The visitors’ poor run with the bat continued as they were bundled out for 205 in the first innings of the second Test here at Jamtha.
“Credit to the Indian bowlers. They bowled really well on this wicket. There was no demon in it,” said Pothas during the presser. Pothas rued the fact that they gave wickets to straighter deliveries. “I said there are no demons in the wicket and six of our wickets fell to straight balls. (Ravindra) Jadeja bowled stump to stump and (Ravichandran) Ashwin got wickets on straight balls so I think that’s bit disappointing.”
The coach said their plan was to first settle well in the beginning. Sri Lanka scored only 32 runs by lunch at a rate of 1.74. “In the first session of a Test match you generally try to settle pace to bat for a long time. But it was not that difficult to bat on. I think India bowled pretty well. There were hardly too many free balls going around. But we adapted after lunch,” he felt.
Sri Lankan batsmen played lot of sweep shots and the captain Dinesh Chandimal, too, got out while sweeping but coach said the batters in the middle are the sole decision makers.
“We empower batters to make decisions out in the middle. He (Chandimal) obviously would have felt to increase scoring at that time but it didn’t come off. May be the timing of that shot was not at its best. But we back our batters to be positive.”
From 160 for four, Sri Lanka lost six wickets for 45 runs. It was the fall of wicketkeeper Niroshan Dickwella, which triggered the downfall. The Lankan coach said Dickwella plays that shot (sweep) well. “But I certainly won’t say that his wicket was reason for the downfall. There were six other batsmen in the team after him,” he said.
Though they have only 205 on the board, Pothas said they have plans for the morrow. “We will have a new day tomorrow and have plans. We will execute them.”
Sri Lanka were humbled in their own backyard by India a few months back but they performed well against Pakistan later. When asked whether they are back to the square one, the coach replied in negative.
“No…we are not back to the square one. Yes, it’s disappointing we did not bat well as there are no demons in the wicket. Pakistan happened a long time back and it is done and dusted. Today, it is a different story and probably we didn’t bat as we should have.”