da cassino： Sri Lanka’s captain Hashan Tillakaratne and coach Duleep Mendislamented their side’s poor fielding in the opening Test but praised the effortsof the bowlers and batsmen
Wisden CricInfo Staff29-Apr-2003Sri Lanka’s captain Hashan Tillakaratne and coach Duleep Mendislamented their side’s poor fielding in the opening Test but praised the effortsof the bowlers and batsmen.”I am very impressed with the batters how they came out and stuck to theirgame plan and managed to save this Test match,” said Tillakaratne, whoscored 144 in the first innings. “Everyone chipped in with big scores.””I am also impressed with the way that the bowlers bowled on a placidbatting track,” he said. “It is just that we need to improve on our fieldingand catching. We made a few mistakes in this Test and we want to rectifythem and come back strongly in the second Test.”Mendis was particularly disappointed with the catching: “Without any doubtit was the catching that let us down in this Test. Maybe things would havebeen different if we had held on to our catches but it was a placid track.””We dropped so many catches that at one stage I was thinking what was reallygoing wrong because we had been doing a lot of fielding practice. I think itwas the fitness levels. Even before the Test match, Alex (Kontouri) saidthat because the fitness levels were down we couldn’t concentrate for longhours. It is something we got to improve and we’ve got to do it fast,” he said.