Sri Lanka had gone through a horrendous run in the ongoing Test series being bowled out for totals less than 120 in their first three innings. But after being asked to follow-on for the second successive time in the series and facing the prospect of another innings thrashing, the Lankan batsmen put their heads down to make everyone sit up and take notice of them by producing a noteworthy display in the second innings at Durham.

Although the batting revival came a shade too late for Mathews’ men to save the series it has somewhat brought back the confidence that was missing in the dressing room and on the field. Despite Sri Lanka’s tremendous fightback England won the second Test by nine wickets to take a winning 2-0 lead in the three-match series.

“Especially in the first innings, not scoring more than 100 was very disappointing. We talked about bringing back the fight – the Sri Lankan fight that we’ve not had in the last couple of weeks,” said Mathews.

“The boys showed a lot of resilience after the last five weeks, to come back and score 475 runs was very pleasing. The way (Dinesh) Chandimal batted and also Kaushal Silva and Rangana Herath – they batted well and fought really hard. The English bowlers bowled really well.”

Reflecting on what inspired them to come out of their shell Mathews said, ““We’ve talked about everything possible to get everything back. It’s just the character we talked about. We talked about our character and the fight. We’ve been talking a lot about it, but unfortunately we didn’t show it on the field.

“I thought we started showing it in the second innings while we were batting. We had a brilliant first day. We caught all our catches. But unfortunately we started off day two by letting Moeen (Ali) and Chris Woakes off the hook. Then we had a really bad day towards the end of the second day – almost getting bowled out. We had to fight really hard. All the batters worked really hard in the nets every single day before the start. We worked hard with the coaches and that was pleasing.”

Mathews said the way Herath batted the other batsmen could take a leaf out of his notebook.

“Rangana’s become a proper no. 8 for us over the past one-and-a-half years,” said Mathews.

He’s been scoring and hanging in there. If I recall a couple of years ago at Headingley he batted with me and got 49. He’s been giving his best with the bat and ball for us over the last couple of years. Every day he’s been trying to get better. Hopefully he can continue that.”

Mathews said that he was disappointed with the batting in the first innings because the wicket was much better than they got at Headingley.

“That’s why I was very disappointed. It wasn’t a 100-run wicket. There was much less grass than Headingley. It was not spinning much. It had a little bit of lateral movement, but there were no demons in the wicket. We could have got at least 250 on that wicket to give ourselves a chance in this game.”

Following Sri Lanka’s magnificent fight back England captain and coach both expressed the same views and said that Sri Lanka cannot be taken for granted.

“It’s hard for the Sri Lankan batters in one sense, but they are very good players, and most of the time on flat wickets you have to work very hard against them,” said England captain Alastair Cook.

“Credit to Sri Lanka, the way they batted in the second innings, and it shows how hard you have to work for Test match wins. It was only two years ago that they beat us at Headingley, so we shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

England coach Trevor Bayliss said: “Any time you can win two Tests in a row and win a series, wrapping it up after two matches, is a fantastic effort. The wicket flattened out and the Sri Lankans showed some of the fight that they’re quite capable of. They’ve got some very good players in their team. Yes, they’ve got some young players but we certainly can’t take it for granted in the third match.”

Mathews knows this Test is crucial for Sri Lanka to stay alive in the three-match series and he said he expected a better performance from his team than the one they put up at Leeds five days ago.

On that occasion Sri Lanka were bundled out for scores of 91 and 119 to lose inside three days by an innings and 88 runs. The win has given a 1-0 lead in the series and they will be looking to wrap it up at Durham where the conditions will once again be favourable to their swing and seam attack led by James Anderson and Stuart Broad.

“We had only a few days to turnaround and think about the game and our strategies,” said Mathews at the pre-Test press conference yesterday. “The defeat at Leeds was quite embarrassing we just have to flush it out of the system. The more we think about it the more disappointed we get. Tomorrow’s going to be a fresh start. To stay alive in the series we’ll have to win regardless of the conditions and the weather. We have to go out there and play at our best. “We need to forget Headingley simple as that. That’s the first thing we got to do. You can’t erase it but you can move on and work really hard, have a positive mind set and walk into the game. It’s a mental adjustment we got to do and hopefully the boys will come out right.

“If we play to our potential it is possible to win the Test, not think about the weather too much. We certainly have the skill and the talent it’s just that we need to go and fight it out for the rest of the five days,” he said.

On the daunting prospect of having to come up against two of the best bowlers in English conditions Anderson and Broad, Mathews said, “In these conditions they are really good bowlers wherever they played they have been really good for the past so many years. They are world class bowlers and you’ve got to be skillful especially in these conditions.

“We have more clarity on our top order batting and we also found the right balance it’s just that when you play more games you tend to learn more. Batting is an art in Test cricket, it is a test of skill, temperament and you have to get used to different conditions. Weather can’t be an excuse because we are all international players. It’s just that we played enough cricket to understand what roles we have to play in the team in the batting line-up. Hopefully they will come up with the challenge.

One of the positives to come out of the tour is the batting of 21-year-old Kusal Mendis and Mathews said the other team members could emulate him.

“This is the first tour for him on the big stage – first Test match in England, he showed a lot of character when the ball is swinging and seaming around,” said Mathews. “That itself showed a lot of character about the player. The rest of the batters can also take a lot of positives out of it and take up the challenge.”

Sri Lanka have not finalized their team for the Test and Mathews said that it will be done later during the day after he sees the pitch and meets up with chairman of Sanath Jayasuriya who was expected to arrive here yesterday.

The likelihood is that Suranga Lakmal is the likely prospect of replacing the injured Dushmantha Chameera who has returned home with a back injury.

England are making one change to their squad with Chris Woakes coming in for injured Ben Stokes.

“We have not seen the best of Chris in England. He is in fine form for Warwickshire taking nine wickets,” said England captain Alastair Cook.

“We need that competition in that all-rounder place. Ben is a big loss for us but injuries are part and parcel of cricket and we need to learn how to play without him.”

Cook also said that England’s top order needs to fire after being reduced to 83-5 at Leeds before they recovered to total 298.

“To get to nearly 300 runs you had to bat well in those extraordinary conditions. Tough innings Alex (Hales) had to really ground out and we were 80-5. The game was in the balance. I don’t think we’ve seen the best of our batting it’s an area we can unlock a bit more. We’re aware about it. As a side we’ve spoken about it. Hopefully the next five days we can pay off,” said Cook.

Both teams were confined to practice indoors due to the bad weather which hopefully is expected to improve over the next three days.