It may be Kumar Sangakkara’s farewell game but the Indian team is all focussed on previous match’s centurion Dinesh Chandimal with leg-spinner Amit Mishra vowing not to allow a repeat show by the Sri Lanka batman in the second Test, starting in Colombo on Wednesday.
“We have seen his videos and we will definitely discuss more about him in the team meeting. We will discuss how to bowl at him (if he tries a similar approach again). Fields will be set accordingly and the idea will be to try and restrict him to playing as few shots as possible and build as much pressure as we can. We will keep attacking him,” said Mishra.
“I don’t think that Indian batsmen struggle against spin; in fact all our batsmen are among the best against spin.
Whenever we bowl at them even at nets, it doesn’t look like that at all. What happens instead is that sometimes you lose one or two wickets under pressure. Anyone can make mistakes under pressure but I don’t think there is any lack of skill against spin,” he said.
Mishra said despite India’s shocking loss at Galle, the team’s morale was high.
“We should have been more aggressive in our batting in the second innings at Galle and more positive. However, there is nothing lacking in team morale despite the defeat and we are looking to make double the effort in this second Test.
“We are playing Test cricket after a bit of a gap, so we made a few mistakes in Galle. But will work on them and improve. Whatever positives we got from that match, we will take them forward,” said Mishra.
