It was an unexpected defeat, says Mathews

Soon after the third Test Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews said that he never expected a defeat and thought that once his side got the 377 run lead that they were sitting pretty and said the the defeat would take some time to digest. We never expected a performance like this from our team and the Pakistanis.

Referring to the pitch he said “There was a little bit of grass on the wicket and we had to go with three pacies, we cannot blame the pitch. On the third or fourth days it doesn’t have much for the seam bowlers and unfortunately Tharindu Kaushal did not bowl well and we couldn’t keep the pressure on them. We are entering an era where Mahela and Kumar won’t be there. May be two more Tests with Sangakkara, all of us will have to take the responsibility and move on as no one will be there for ever.”

Pakistan’s Younis Khan who made 171 not out acknowledges the cheers of the crowd after reaching 150 runs on the final day of the third test against Sri Lanka at Pallekele yesterday.

“We’ll all have to take the responsibility . It was a very good game from our point of view we fought very hard, after the first couple of days both teams were quite even. There after we were put under pressure being 30 odd for three and the rest of the batsmen fought really hard. Jehan Mubarak and Upul Tharanga played mature roles . We fought to get up to 376 and never thought we could lose from there” said Mathews.

He said that the wicket did turn only in patches and it neither helped the seamers. The seamers Prasad, Lakmal, Nuwan Pradeep bowled well on an unresponsive wicket. But you cannot just blame the wicket when you got 377 runs to get them out.

Referring to the omission of Rangana Herath Mathews said ” it was a just a tactical decision. He is still our number one bowler. Unfortunately we had to leave him out because they were playing Rangana really well in the last two Tests and Tharindu Kaushal was troubling them in the second Test. So we thought that’s the way to go.”