Shikhar Dhawan's dropped catch made the difference, says Sri Lankan Team manager

Indian team is on a long tour to Sri Lanka and have started the tour with some exceptional performances. On day one of the first Test, mustache rolling southpaw, Shikhar Dhawan gave a dream start to India and scored 190 runs at an astonishing strike rate of 113.1.

It wouldn’t be wrong to term it ‘one-way traffic’ as visitors stole all three sessions in their bucket and seem to be way ahead at the moment. On the other hand, Pujara yet again showed why he is called the pillar of Indian cricket as he in his factory like mode, churned out yet another hundred and looking solid to convert it into a big one.

Dhawan’s dropped catch made the difference

Sri Lankan team manager, Asanka Gurusinha on Wednesday rued the dropped catch of Shikhar Dhawan, saying the team paid a heavy price as he went on to score 190 runs, which eventually made the difference between two sides.

The manager at the press conference said, “It is hard to appreciate bowlers’ effort after you concede 400 runs in a day. India are a very strong side. We dropped a catch of Dhawan and then paid a price. Not sure what would have happened had that catch been taken.”

Host suffered ‘double blow’

The host didn’t have a great day on the field as they let India score 399 runs and adding to their misery, Asela Gunaratne suffered a thumb injury which subsequently ruled him out of the remainder of the Test series and the hosts will be playing this match with 10 players.

“It was a double blow. We dropped the catch and lost a player,” said Gurusinha.

“It’s sad. He will undergo a surgery in a short while. Most probably he will be out for a minimum of four weeks. We will know in the next 48 hours about the time frame. He has fractured his thumb in three places. As soon as we saw the x-rays we knew it was very serious and we rushed him to Colombo,” the manager added.

Gurusinha further said that Sri Lankan is well aware of the fact that Indian team has a power packed batting line up and are capable of unleashing any bowling attack.

Praising Shikhar Dhawan and Pujara he said, “We know Dhawan wasn’t in the initial squad but then he came back into the side and showed the selectors what he is capable of. It was a good track for him and we also ended up bowling to his strength, and he capitalised on that.”

“But we have to be honest that we didn’t bowl well. Nuwan Pradeep was the only outstanding bowler I thought. It’s a really good batting wicket. I heard Virat (Kohli) talking that it is a good batting wicket. We bowled on both sides of the wicket as well. Dhawan just took over the game. His 190-run knock was one reason we find ourselves in this situation.”

Gurusinha confident of things falling in place

Though Sri Lankan team had an off day on the field, Gurusinha is confident that Sri Lankan team has the ability to make their way into the match and repeat what they did against Zimbabwe recently.

They will recall the manner in which Sri Lanka beat India turning around a similarly dominant performance from the visitors on day one of the series back in 2015. You never know. This is Galle and after scoring 600 runs you can still lose a Test match.

“Our batsmen have to just to go out and play good cricket. Let’s see what happens in the last two days. We need to first try and get India out tomorrow. We will probably bat somewhere tomorrow,” he concluded.