Sri Lanka undone by inconsistency – Ford

da dobrowin： Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford said his side had positives to take from a 3-0drubbing in Australia, but had ultimately been undone by inconsistency

Andrew Fernando07-Jan-2013

Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford said his side had positives to take from a 3-0 drubbing in Australia, but had ultimately been undone by inconsistency, after Australia completed the whitewash with a five-wicket win in Sydney. Previously in the series, Sri Lanka had been close to achieving a draw in Hobart, where they were bowled out with only 10.4 overs remaining until stumps on day five, but had also sunk to their third-heaviest defeat in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne.The visitors could not dominate Australia throughout the series, and alsoconceded substantial first-innings deficits in each match. The batsmencould only muster one score in excess of 300, and only once batted out asession without losing a wicket.Sri Lanka were also sloppy in the field, particularly in Melbourne wherefive chances went down in Australia’s innings, and did not sustainpressure on Australia with the ball. Their poor use of the DRS alsocontributed to their failure.”We’ve got to look at ourselves and accept there were areas where we wereshort and consistency is an important thing,” Ford said. “There wereperiods when we were every bit as good as the Australians, but we weren’table to sustain that. We had the odd session every now and then when we setourselves back quite badly.”Ford said Sri Lanka were encouraged by their performance in Sydney,particularly as their batting in the last Test was driven largely bycontributions from the side’s young batsmen. Twenty three-year-old LahiruThirimanne’s 91 was the highest score in the first innings, while DimuthKarunaratne, 24, top-scored in the second innings with 85. DineshChandimal, 23, then helped his side recover from a middle-order collapse,as he batted with the tail to take Sri Lanka’s lead to 140. He made 62 notout, having forged a 41-run partnership with Nuwan Pradeep for the lastwicket.”A couple of the young guys who have been given opportunities have shownthat they can play at this level. What I was happy with on the final daywas the pride and the passion and the way they went out and fought. A lotof people didn’t feel the Test would continue for as long as it did. A chaplike Nuwan Pradeep going out and handling some nasty pace he wasn’tequipped to handle – he really showed some character, along with youngChandimal. The boys certainly never gave up in the field until the last runwas scored.”I think what’s been positive is that the young batsmen have handled theirtime out of the side so well. They’ve kept working on their game and kepttalking about how they will be absolutely ready when they do get theirchance. Attitude is just so important in a touring group. They’ve showedthe perfect attitude and when the chance has come their way, they’ve reallygrabbed it.”Ford also defended Thilan Samaraweera’s shot selection, after the batsmanhad perished in the second dig to a top-edged swipe across the line toNathan Lyon, off the third ball of his innings. Samaraweera had struggledfor form throughout the series, and made 79 in six innings.”That’s the nature of the game. We see highly experienced players makedecisions that don’t work on the particular day. Looking at the biggerpicture, what was disappointing for me, and I said it after the pressconference, is that we could have perhaps squeezed out a few more runs inthat first innings. And we could have squeezed out a few more in the secondinnings as well.”