Jayawardene believes Sri Lanka should have sealed the deal

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene has voiced his frustrations at his team-mates after they ended the two-Test series against New Zealand as a 1-1 draw.

Jayawardene noted that these types of results were unsatisfactory since the national team managed to beat the Black Caps 2-0 when they last met in 2009.

Sri Lanka absolutely dominated New Zealand during the first Test at Galle, winning it by 10 wickets, however, the New Zealanders fought back during the second Test at Colombo and managed to secure a 167 run victory, which gave them their first Test win over Sri Lanka in 14 years.

“Playing at home, with the talent that we have in our team, I think we’re the more disappointed side with a one-all result,” Jayawardene said. “I think we should have wrapped up this series and walked away with it.”

Jayawardene stated that Sri Lanka need to perform better, especially during pressure situations.

“In the first two, three days, they dominated the Test match and put us under a lot of pressure,” Jayawardene added. “We didn’t handle that pressure well. We’re disappointed, especially coming here with a one-nil lead from Galle after three days of Test cricket.”

Sri Lanka’s top order collapsed in three out of four innings during the Test series and Jayawardene noted that this habit has to stop, especially when the national team play against stronger and higher-ranked opponents.

“We have to make sure that we try and control the innings up front, especially when they are bowling with the new ball,” Jayawardene said. “In both Test matches, we gave away too many wickets up front and we never got any momentum. So they capitalised on that.

“In the first innings, this wicket was pretty good and New Zealand batted really well. They scored big runs. When our opportunity came, we wanted to make sure that we put up a big score, but we couldn’t. That’s where we made the mistake. From that point onwards, we were under pressure.”

Set a target of 363 to win, Sri Lanka got off to a poor start, losing their top five batsmen with just 63 runs on the board.

At this point, Jayawardene would have even been happy with a draw, but it was not to be, despite the courageous efforts of vice-captain Angelo Mathews.

“The thinking on the fifth day was that we should get through that first hour and build a couple of partnerships,” Jayawardene added. “With Thilan batting with Angelo, It was crucial that those two guys try and guide us through to lunch and from then, we try and capitalise. It was very unfortunate the way that Sammy got run out. But, even after that, PJ (Prasanna Jayawardene) and Angelo batted really well for a good period of time. Whenever we felt that we were getting through a certain tough period, we lost a wicket.

“Exposing the tailenders for the second new ball is always going to be tough for those guys. If we had had a couple of batsmen running through that morning and afternoon session, we would have had a fighting chance.”

This is the third match in a row Sri Lanka have lost while playing at the P Sara Oval in Colombo, with the first two coming against England in March and India in 2010.

However, all those matches lost in Colombo were after Sri Lanka had won in Galle.

Jayawardene could not figure out what problem Sri Lanka had when it came to playing in Colombo, but added that it had to be sorted out as soon as possible.

“That’s something that we need to look at,” Jayawardene said. “It has happened every time we played here and it hadn’t happened at the SSC.

“It’s a very sporting wicket. Sometimes, on day one it assists the fast bowlers more than any other wicket in Sri Lanka, but I think it is a very good Test wicket.”