Pakistan still has a chance, says Woolmer

Sa'adi Thawfeeq

CRICKET: Pakistan coach Bob Woolmer thinks that his team has a chance of winning the first cricket Test against Sri Lanka at the SSC grounds. By stumps on the third day Sri Lanka had score 242-2 to hold onto an overall lead of 251 runs with eight second innings wickets in hand.

"Sri Lanka are ahead of the ball game at the moment but there is still an opportunity for us to win this game.

We have to be positive and think that way. We can't just sit down and think of trying to draw the game," said Woolmer at the end of the day.

"It's two days of cricket to go and Sri Lanka are in front.

In a soccer match if this is half time we will be 3-1 down at the moment. We need to get some goals in the second half," continued Woolmer.

"We got to bowl well tomorrow and hope the pitch does a little bit for us in the morning and try and reduce the target to a manageable one and see what we can do with the bat. The pitch looks pretty good."

"We haven't bowled, batted and fielded as well as we should have done. It is a disappointing day of Test cricket for us if you look at the contrast with India and England in the past. We are not always going to have great days of Test cricket," he said.

Describing the day's play Woolmer said: "At 124-4 we were looking to push on and try and get a lead.

The pitch was always going to get better. It was disappointing. We can't always do well. The guys are trying and they didn't get out on purpose.

"Sri Lanka bowled well and we played some average shots throughout the whole innings. It is always difficult to put your finger on why that happens. We bowled well we thought we could just do it easily. I am not going to speak for the batsmen. They know they made mistakes and they will try and correct it in the second innings."

Woolmer said the two dropped catches by Younis Khan off Jayasuriya and Kamran Akmal off Jayawardene were 'difficult ones' and added that generally it was 'okay'.

"I am sure the heat affects people but you've got to climb above that. You've got to get in and get stuck in for the whole day. These are areas that we can always improve on," he said.