Herath: This is my best performance since I have taken 10 wickets for the first time. I am happy it came against the No. 1 team. I just wanted to bowl in the right areas, there was not much from the pitch and I needed to maintain a good line. I am thankful to Mahela for his batting. Randiv is getting better and will become special in the near future.
Herath is the MoM for his 12/ 171
Mahela: It is a significant moment. It has been a tough period for us. Everyone has worked hard in the last 12-16 months. We were put under pressure, Trott played really well. It was tough to get wickets on this track. I felt 275 would be good, 340 was a real bonus. Credit to our lower order. The old ball got soft and it was difficult. We needed to keep things quiet in that period. The new ball gave us more bite and the bowlers utilized it pretty well. Rangana has been in the team for quiet some team. Suraj can become one of the our better bowlers in future. I am pretty happy with my own performance. I needed to hang on till the end to help us get a competitive total.
Strauss: We are bitterly disappointed. We made too many mistakes in between some fine individual efforts from Anderson, Swann and Trott. Full credit to the way Sri Lanka played. Mahela’s knock in the 1st innings was superb and so was Herath in both innings. We cannot afford to make silly mistakes in the field and if we do so, we do not deserve to win. Our batting was a bit too soft, we had a great chance to put them under pressure. It is frustrating as I have batted well, but I need to score more runs. We have one more Test to prove that we can play in the sub-continent. Thanks to the crowd who kept us egging on. We need to wait on Tests on Broad which may happen in the next two days. We need to do better at Colombo.
More Highlights of 1st Test
