New Zealand's bat coach even credits Sri Lanka for batting "beautifully" in Galle
There are rough days, and then there are tough times, and then New Zealand had to endure Galle on time two. The weather appeared to be the only thing that seemed right for them, as it would have been a day of cruel and unusual punishment if it had n't been for the persistent overcast conditions.
Sri Lanka piled on 296 works for just the loss of two innings, while every strategy, every thought, every energy New Zealand put back, came to very significant nil. Their spinner struggled generally fruitlessly for 124 while they tried seven distinct bowlers, yet giving Daryl Mitchell a work. 4 innings, before the charter came. Just Glenn Phillips was able to aggravate things.
In that sense, while Dhananjaya de Silva has been lucky with his knocks, none of the six he's won on the walk might have been as crucial as this one, with batting situations easing up significantly on time two and allowing Sri Lanka's pitchers to run roughshod over trials.
" The surface is different. After the first Test, New Zealand batting coach Luke Ronchi commented," I think just looking at it, just it looks dryer than the first Test that we played, and it's that bit harder." " So, once the batters are in it's a nice surface. The ball gets that little bit older as well, and it makes it different. "
These were sentiments echoed by Angelo Mathews as well, who was one of four Sri Lankan batters to pass fifty. Ronchi also praised the Sri Lankan batters when they were given credit where they were, but he still regrets the first-day opportunities he had missed.
" I think when you look at the bowlers, they toiled really hard, they tried different plans, different sort of tactics, to try and produce some chances, and when we did we unfortunately missed them. But that's just part of cricket. I think if we look back, the guys would have preferred to have taken some of them but it's just what happens.
" But there were n't as many today as there were yesterday. And Sri Lankans of course batted beautifully. "
Ronchi outlined a strategy for navigating the remainder of the game, saying that the goal should be to avoid looking too far ahead. In the final 45 minutes of play, their batters had to contend with losing two wickets to New Zealand, who are still 580 runs adrift. The fact that New Zealand had the most points in the previous Test is 340 makes things even more concerning.
" Now, as a batting group, it's making sure we can apply ourselves," Ronchi said. " We did that in the first Test, so we need to sort of back our plans and our processes and the work we've done.
" That's something we've done really well for a number of years. It's not about looking at an end-product type thing, but the processes and how we're going to make the best of each ball, each moment and each partnership.
" So the batters know their process and how they go about scoring runs, what they want to do and how they want to put pressure on the bowlers. "
More importantly, said Ronchi, it's about taking the game as deep as possible.
You simply want to simply go out there and bat as long as possible. That's a massive part of what's going to happen. There's three days left, so we've got to make sure that we can bat well and sort of see what happens. "
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