Test matches are won on first innings - Mahela

Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from England

CRICKET: If Sri Lanka are to make any headway towards beating England and sharing the three-Test series one-all at Trent Bridge, Nottingham in another five days time they will need to show some steel in their batting first-up..

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene admitted after his team had lost the second Test to England by six wickets at Edgbaston on Sunday that in both Tests his team did not bat well in the first innings, and this was a big concern..

At Lord's they were dismissed for 192 and here at Edgbaston for 141.. "Our biggest mistake is that we did not bat well in the first innings in both Tests.

If we can solve that problem we can definitely challenge England," said Jayawardene in a post-match press conference. "Winning the toss on a very good wicket we had to take that advantage which we did not.

After that we were actually chasing in the game. The wicket was dry. It was going to start turning and be uneven as well, but we made the big mistake the first morning. Our main problem is we have to be consistent with the bat. If we can put the runs on the board, we can definitely compete," continued Jayawardene.

"There are a lots of ifs and buts. If we had scored a little more in the second innings maybe, yes, we could have stood a chance, but we lost the advantage on the first morning. You had to put a decent enough score on the board. Test matches are won on first innings, especially on wickets like this," he said.

Praise for Vandort

Jayawardene praised the batting of opener Michael Vandort who defied the England bowling for more than six and a half hours to score a century (105).."Michael showed a lot of character. It was probably one of the best innings I have seen. He batted through the innings in a very difficult period.

There were a lot of wickets falling around him. He held the innings for us and showed a lot of character. He was very solid in defence as well. That's the confidence he needed. Probably it will solve our problems," said Jayawardene.."Upul's (Tharanga) has been getting a lot of runs.

He had a bad game probably after a long time (0 and 0). The last six months he has been batting really well. Hopefully the combination of Upul and Michael will give us a lot of confidence," he said..Vandort's chances of playing in the Test looked a forlorn thought when he collected a pair in the 4-day game against England 'A' at Worcester.

"The Worcester wicket wasn't the best to bat on. We knew Michael was going through a phase where he just had to get some confidence behind him. We always had faith in him and (Jehan) Mubarak," said Jayawardene. "The talent was there he just needed to come out of that shell and show a lot of other people what he is capable of doing. Even though he played Bangladesh he had very good starts. His Test record does speak for itself. If he can continue to do that it will be great for us."

Six batters to do the job

Jayawardene dismissed the notion of reverting back to playing seven batsmen and four bowlers instead of the 6-5 format, which they went into at Edgbaston. "I don't think going back to seven batsmen is an option because if you have to win Test matches you must have the option of five bowlers.

We need to have that variety in our attack especially with (Farveez) Maharoof and (Chaminda) Vaasy, the way they are batting. Whoever the batsman is going to be, the six batters will have to do the job for us," said Jayawardene.

Whilst praising his key spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who single-handedly tried to wrest the initiative from England with a match haul of ten wickets, Jayawardene said: "We need to figure out a way of getting early wickets and helping Murali out. That's probably one of the questions that we have to start answering. The bowling seems to be coming around.

With Lasith Malinga coming into the attack gives us more variations and option to get 20 wickets. Murali is going to be our main bowler and he will do the job for us." "Whenever he is thrown a challenge Murali wants to rise upto the occasion.

Especially with a young bowling attack he is still doing the job for us. If we can give him some more help he will be much more dangerous, I reckon. The way he is bowling, with a lot of heart and character is brilliant. He wants to improve, which is excellent," he said. On the batting of Kevin Pietersen who has already hit two centuries off the Lankan bowling, Jayawardene said: "He is batting very well. He's got a positive frame of mind. He is attacking and he does take chances and sometimes it pays off for him. I think we have to be a bit more disciplined when he comes to bat with our bowling and try figure out how to get him. There are no obvious ways to get him out. We've been analysing his strengths and weaknesses and see whether we can penetrate those weaknesses."