Andy Balbirnie: Feels fine, it was a good spell of bowling and Harry played very well. We have to take the positives. To take it to day five was excellent. We know how good a team Sri Lanka is. We need to make improvements. It is not easy, we don’t play a lot of red-ball cricket. We have to do things better. We will learn a lot in these two weeks. Our next Test is against England. Very fortunate to play here, and it is a great venue.
Dimuth Karunaratne: It was a very different wicket from the first one. The way the bowlers bowled, it was really amazing. The fast bowler, spinners, and Ramesh came back very well. This kind of cricket is what I am expecting from the boys. If they can get 500, of course, we can cross that. We wanted to get a good start, and we got that. Runs matter for the batters, it will boost the confidence.
The batters did well. Everyone did their job. We knew it could rain anytime, so I asked the bowlers to put in a good session and the bowlers put their hands up. The way Asitha bowled was really amazing. If we want to win away series, this is the kind of bowling we need. Ramesh could not do well in the first innings, but he bounced back well. He will do well in the Pakistan series as well.
Kusal Mendis is the Player of the Series: [This is a summary] However good the surface was, it was challenging. He says he was trying to be aggressive and he did not know about the six-hitting record.
Prabath Jayasuriya is the Player of the Match: This is a very different wicket when compared to the first game, which was a batting-friendly wicket. We were trying to do the basics right. For these kinds of wickets, patience is very important. We were trying to be patient. The shoulder is fine.
Sri Lanka vs Ireland Highlights today, Friday 28-4-2023. 2nd Test, Ireland tour of Sri Lanka 2023, Galle International Stadium.
Ireland has won the toss and they will bat first.
Sri Lanka team: Dimuth Karunaratne (c), Nishan Madushka, Kusal Mendis, Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dhananjaya de Silva, Sadeera Samarawickrama (wk), Ramesh Mendis, Prabath Jayasuriya, Asitha Fernando, Vishwa Fernando
Ireland team: Paul Stirling, James McCollum, Andrew Balbirnie (c), Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker (wk), PJ Moor, Curtis Campher, Graham Hume, Andy McBrine, Matthew Humphreys, Ben White
Head to Head In Test’s: 1
Sri Lanka Won: 1
Ireland Won: 0
Sri Lanka Test Rankings: 7th
Ireland Test Rankings: 12th
Form guide
(last five completed Tests, most recent first)
Sri Lanka WLLWL
Ireland LLLLL
Match Timings: 4:30 AM | 10:00 AM Local
Umpires – Kumar Dharmasena, Paul Reiffel
TV Umpire – Adrian Holdstock
Match Referee – Javagal Srinath
Reserve Umpire – Ruchira Palliyaguruge
Match number – Test no. 2503
