Credit to Dhananjaya de Silva, Roshen Silva against great bowlers: Dinesh Chandimal

Dhananjaya de Silva scored a ton while Roshan Silva notched up a half-century in second innings. (Source: PTI)

Sri Lanka managed to earn a draw from the third Test against India in New Delhi skipper Dinesh Chadimal appreciated the efforts of his players and suggested the series to be a good one for his team.

“It was a really good series. Apart from the second game, we played some good cricket. Credit to the players and management. Most important thing was to execute the plans. Credit to the players. We got Rangana and Angelo, the most experienced players in our team. When Angelo performs well, the youngsters will watch him how to go about it.

Dhananjaya de Silva scored a hundred at Feroz Shah Kotla on Wednesday while Roshan Silva remained unbeaten on 74 while chasing a target of 410 runs. Chandimal credited the duo for their batting efforts that led this match towards a draw.  “Credit to Dhananjaya and Roshen Silva in tough conditions against great bowlers.”

Dinesh Chandimal was omitted from the ODI squad. Talking about his own batting Chandimal suggested that he has been working hard on his batting and has also made some changes in his techniques.

“I’ve done a lot of hard work. I’ve made changes in my technique, and have worked with the batting coach,” he told.

The third Test match between India and Sri Lanka at New Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla stadium has been affected by the “smog” that had created breathing problems for the visiting team. The Sri Lankan team wore anti-pollution face masks in the first innings while in second innings too skipper Dinesh Chandimal and Angelo Mathews sported the masks.

“It was a tough time. In Sri Lanka, we aren’t used to this (talking about air quality), so we struggled for the first two days. Today is a fantastic day. Feels like Sri Lanka. Thanks to Indian fans for supporting us. Thanks to Virat and team, they’re really good. Wish them well for South Africa,” Chandimal said.

Niroshan Dickwella revealed that the visitors were at some point gave a thought to chase down the target but lack of partnerships and Dhananjaya’s return to pavilion retired hurt denied them to execute the plan.

“Ashwin and Jadeja were bowling really well and it was tough to face them. But I was playing my normal game. We were planning to chase the target down if we got some good partnerships. But unfortunately, Dhananjaya de Silva got injured, we had some fine partnerships, if only Dhananjaya had stayed longer, we could have gone for the target. It wasn’t a tough pitch to bat, but there was some help for the seamers and there was some rough as well, that was the reason we played a lot of sweeps and we used our feet against the spinners,”Dickwella said.

Roshan Silva played a crucial role in taking the match towards the draw as he scored an unbeaten 74 in second innings. Talking about his plans against R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, Silva said that playing some shots against the two spinners would push them on backfoot.

“I was under pressure, I just wanted to impress the selectors. They are quality bowlers, so I thought if we play some shots against Ashwin and Jadeja, it will put them on the back foot. It wasn’t tricky (the wicket), our batting coach said ‘if you can score runs here, the whole world will know you can score runs’. I wanted to impress the coaching staff and prove that I can do well at the International level. I guess I grabbed the opportunity,” Roshan said.