Dhananjaya de Silva admits Sri Lanka have to do ‘much better’ to win in England

Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva, on the back of Sri Lanka’s 190-run defeat at Lord’s, admitted that his side have been well below par and insisted that they will have to do much better if they are to win a Test in England.

After showing good fight in the first Test at Old Trafford, the visitors were expected to get better at Lord’s but they folded not once but twice with the bat, getting rolled over for 196 in the first innings before posting 251 in the second innings, chasing 483.

Sri Lanka failed to bat 90 overs in either innings, and in fact lasted just 55 overs in the first dig.

A disappointed de Silva was honest with his assessment in the aftermath of the series defeat.

"We had two days to bat, bat simple and bat long [was the message]. England are always putting pressure back on us, we haven't been good enough to win in England,” de Silva said at the post match presentation, reported ESPNcricinfo.

“We have to do better to get a win in England, we have to be at our best."

On the very first day, de Silva took a surprising decision to bowl first after winning the toss, despite both the pitch and conditions looking ideal for batting. He admitted that he ‘could’ have chosen to bat first, but claimed that he wanted to bowl to give some rest to his bowlers, who toiled hard in the first Test.

“I could have batted first, but I had to give them a breather and let them see how the pitch would play, but that didn't work,” de Silva.

But the Lankan skipper lavished praise on young Kamindu Mendis, who has been a silver lining for the tourists in this series. The left-hander posted yet another big score in the first innings (74) to make it six fifty-plus scores in his first five Tests. Mendis has now scored the third-most runs by any batter in history after five Tests.

“Kamindu has been awesome in every innings except the last innings here. Gets runs quickly which is a positive sign at No.7,” the Sri Lanka skipper said.

As a result of the defeat, Sri Lanka have slipped to seventh on the World Test Championship (WTC) points table.

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