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| Sunday, 21 March 2004 |
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It's great to win in the subcontinent says Ponting SA'ADI THAWFEEQ reporting from Kandy KANDY, March 20 - Captain Ricky Ponting said that it was a great achievement for his team to win a Test series in the subcontinent after Australia had beaten Sri Lanka by 27 runs in the second cricket Test at the Asgiriya International Stadium here today to take an unbeatable 2-0 lead in the 3-Test series. "It says a lot about our team. We simply had our backs to the wall earlier on in these two Test matches and have been able to turn it around and win. It is very pleasing for me and it was emotional for some of the coaching staff and some of the players. We know what this win means to us," said Ponting. "We spoke about this for a long time. About coming here and winning here and in India. I guess we taken one step today. We played some excellent cricket. So did Sri Lanka." "It was pretty tense in the morning. It was tense for most of our last innings in the game, the way Jayasuriya played yesterday. He really took it up to a certain level. They had us on the back foot for most of the day. It was a great game of cricket. It came right down to the wire," he said. "During his innings we saw there was a chance of getting him out and we did get him out. We saw that if we could keep him tied down we could put some pressure on the other players to ensure we created enough chances to win. "It probably got to the stage where he was scoring quicker than we would have liked. We put Shane (Warne) back on and brought a quick from the other end to try and tighten things up a little bit. At that stage I think he was struggling with his fitness as well. His legs were cramping. We finally got him out," continued Ponting. The Australian captain said that Warne was fantastic again. Ponting praised the pitch and said: "This was an excellent wicket. I expected it to deteriorate a lot more than it did. The first morning there was a bit of moisture around. It looked a bit dusty underneath it we thought it might dust and turn a bit more as it has done here in previous games. But it held together really well. That's why I was always nervous about 350 whether it was enough runs. But as it turned out it was just enough." We threw it away says Hashan Sri Lanka captain Hashan Tillakaratne said that his team threw away a good chance of beating Australia. "We had our chances and we just threw them away. We need to play more professional cricket and I am sure we have learned from the last two Tests." Tillakaratne said that it was so close and yet so far for his team they couldn't pull off a win. "It was so disappointing. We wanted to remain positive today and try and win it. We told our players to remain positive and the target was gettable. There were so many soft dismissals down the line. Our batting and catching really let us down," said a despondent Tillakaratne. "We had our chances but we just gave it to them on a platter once again. Our intention was to remain positive this morning. We told Vaasy (Chaminda Vaas) to get strike as much as possible. That was the instruction we gave them. "I thought when he got the reprieve he should have just settled down and rotated the strike, but that's how the game goes. Probably the situation was such that they had to go on and get those runs. But then again that was a loose shot," he said. Tillakaratne said that the middle order was a concern. "I am trying hard to get some runs, but I am disappointed that I am getting out so cheaply. There are other batsmen who are getting 30s and 40s and getting out without getting the big ones. It's a concern and we are tying to get out of it." Tillakaratne welcomed the return to form of Sanath Jayasuriya who scored a blistering a century and gave Sri Lanka a whiff of victory. "The other batsmen need to take a leaf out of him and get back to the form as early as possible." |
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