Sri Lanka’s ace spinner Prabath Jayasuriya said that debutant spinner Keshara Nuwantha had a promising future ahead of him provided he can be consistent.
Sri Lanka required an off-spinner to support Jayasuriya, and opted for uncapped Nuwantha for the first Test and the bowler bowled impressively taking the wickets of KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant and Ravindra Jadeja bowling 39 overs for 175 runs. He proved an ideal foil to Jayasuriya who went onto capture 4/109.
‘Playing your first test against a side like India is not easy because they are ranked high. It is a big challenge for anyone,’ said Jayasuriya.
“Keshara is new. He has not played many first-class matches or matches at international level. If he can focus and improve his consistency, he can go a long way. He has the potential and I think he can go far and do a lot for the country.’
Jayasuriya said that the toss played a vital role in Galle. ‘We did not have much luck with it. It is something that we cannot control. If we had won the toss, it could have been a different scenario.’
‘The wicket is still good for batting. You cannot expect the spinners to get wickets on the first day. The ball is not turning sharply to be dangerous for the batsmen,’ was how Jayasuriya assessed the wicket.
Devdutt Padikkal said that it will take probably another couple of sessions for the wicket to really start breaking up. ‘We know that in Galle, especially, it tends to quicken up pretty fast on the third and fourth day. So we are expecting that to happen again.’
On his maiden Test century Padikkal said, ‘I’ve dreamt of this moment. For the last two years, I’ve been working really hard to try and make sure that when I get that opportunity, I can do something special like this, and I’m really happy to do that.’ – [ST]