Sri Lankan team showed great amount of character, says Sangakkara

Chris Dhambarage

Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara said that his team had shown a great amount of character in recording a two nil whitewash against the touring New Zealand team in the Test series which concluded at the SSC ground in Maitland Place yesterday.

This was also Sangakkara’s second successive Test series triumph at home following their two nil win against Pakistan after having taken over the reins from Mahela Jayawardena in March this year. Sangakkara applauded the splendid efforts of left arm spinner Rangana Herath who was the match winner with figures of five wickets for 139 runs.

This was incidentally the longest spell that Herath had bowled in a Test match for his country. The Sri Lankan captain also commended the performance of ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan who was able to create some damage despite nursing a groin injury.

Sangakkara noted that it was a good sign for the future with Herath playing the role as the number one spinner throughout this match.

He said that Sri Lanka could look forward with great hope as there are plenty of good replacement spinners in the squad in the calibre of Ajantha Mendis and Suraj Randiv. The Sri Lankan captain also stressed the role played by shadow coach Chandika Hathurusinghe who has been a great asset to the side.

Team moving in the right direction

Meanwhile Man of the Match Mahela Jayawardena said that the team is moving in the right direction as the players are motivated to play under different conditions. The former Sri Lankan captain however was disappointed that he was dismissed in the 90s in both innings.

The elegant right hand middle order batsman fell agonizingly for 92 and 96 in the two innings respectively and joined a select band of players to have got out in a similar fashion in a Test match. Man of the Series Thilan Samaraweera was delighted with the kind of performances in this series which has brought him a total of 347 runs at a splendid average of 86.75. The solid right hand middle order batsman also reached a milestone when he became the second batsman to complete 1,000 runs for the current year.

Samaraweera believed that it was his change of attitude since 2006 that has helped him to produce a lot of runs in the longer version of the game having set his mind on one particular goal. He said that the secret for his success this year is because he has been able to make use of all the bad deliveries.