Lankan bowlers need more experience -Dilshan

Dilanka MANNAKKARA

“Sri Lanka’s bowlers need more experience and consistency to especially win Test matches and we can’t afford to give batsmen chances,” said a disappointed captain Tilakaratne Dilshan during the post match press conference at SSC yesterday.

Dilshan also mentioned that Sri Lanka managed to win most of its Test matches due to great bowlers like Muralitharan and Vaas and that the other bowlers should step up in a collective effort in the future.

He made special mention of Shaminda Eranga who bowled well in his debut Test match as well as Rangana Herath who was easily Sri Lanka’s best bowler in the tournament.

Dilshan also praised the wonderful batting of Mike Hussey who emerged Man of the Series as well as the Man of the Match and said that it was Hussey’s batting that made the difference in the final result.

When the question was posed about the lack of urgency from Sri Lanka’s batting and how Angelo Mathews crawled to his first century, Dilshan said that was Angelo’s first 100 and during the last minutes of third day we were just happy to play till the day ends and during the fourth day morning we wanted Angelo to take the single of the last ball and he couldn’t go for any big shots since there were nine fielders near the boundary.

Dilshan also said that he is happy to bat in the middle order as batting coach Marvan Atapattu also had aided his decision.

“I have batted very well in the middle order and I feel that I could be at my best batting in the middle order in Test matches.”