Suranga Lakmal is a world class bowler, says Sri Lankan coach Nic Pothas

Sri Lankan speedster Suranga Lakmal has made it a habit to announce himself in a grand fashion in series openers. After stunning the Indian side in the Kolkata Test on the first day of the tour, Lakmal recreated his heroics at Dharamsala. His four-wicket haul had seen team India reel on 29/7 at one stage in the match.

The visitors managed to bundle out the strong Indian side for just 112. They eventually sealed the game with 7 wickets in hand to go 1-0 up in the series. As per the recent quotes in PTINews, the interim coach of the Sri Lankan team, Nic Pothas expressed his happiness with Lakmal’s performance. He mentioned that Suranga Lakmal is a world class bowler. He will always succeed in the conditions where the wicket has something for the fast bowlers.

“Look, Suranga Lakmal is a world-class bowler. If you give him the conditions that suits him, doesn’t matter to whom he bowls, he is always going to make life difficult. In his career so far, he had bowled on flat, dry wickets. You give him some greenery, he will be brilliant. In South Africa at the start of this year, he was superb again. He is a class performer and guts individual and great guy to have in the team,” quoted Nic Pothas.

On Sri Lanka’s win

Reflecting back at the stupendous win that ended the losing streak of the Sri Lankan team, Pothas noted that it has been a good win for them. He rightly noted that the team has not had many such moments of joy in the recent times and hence, this win certainly means a lot to them. Moreover, beating a big team like India is always a big achievement.

“It is a good place to be. We enjoyed the win. We haven’t had lot of success in white ball cricket. We are at a position now things are quite settled, players understand roles. We used a different strategy and very pleased with the way things worked out for us today,” he quoted.

“Whenever you play a quality team like India, you have to adapt. We have seen historically, if you want to win against India – this game was different but you have to play spin well in the middle overs. We acknowledged that we have some very good players of spin, worked around the batting line up a bit. We gave ourselves the best chance,” Pothas added.

On Angelo Mathews

While Suranga Lakmal was the star with the ball, it was Angelo Mathews who starred with the bat. Nic Pothas had words of praise for Mathews as well. He remarked that Mathews has done exceedingly well do maintain the overall all-round workload for the team.

“Angelo looked great again. He has got his work load in. The physio has done some great work with him. He is not full capacity yet. Angelo is world class performer and the way he handled that situation with the bat showed how important he is for us,” said Nic Pothas.

On defining moments in the match

Trying to pin point the big moments in the match, the interim head coach of the team remarked that the no ball bowled by Jasprit Bumrah was certainly a big turning point. Bumrah had managed to dismiss Upul Tharanga cheaply, albeit on a no ball. Pothas remarked that things could have been worse had that not been a no ball. Also, he called the toss to be another game changing moment.

“I firmly believe that there were two massive moments in the game. It had to be said that the toss was massive in the game and the no ball to Upul Tharanga. If you lose another one we are suddenly 15 for three and that is hugely different situation. We have looked at two situations where for me they sort of defined the day,” conceded the Sri Lankan coach.