Sangakkara salutes team effort

by S M August 25, 2009

"We had three very good individual performances with in the batting department," Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara said.

"Dilshan batted magnificently in both innings and he really put us back on top and took the game away from the Kiwis after we lost those early wickets on the first day.

"Mahela batted beautifully again and Samaraweera (both scored centuries in the first innings) showed his class again.

"He has put in a lot of hard work to get where he is and it's showing. The bowlers, especially the pacemen who had to work really hard, were fantastic."

"When the side is playing so well, you really don't have to make any tough decisions. It's just made for you," he said.

"You throw the ball to someone and they always respond. Once the Kiwis negotiated an over from Muralitharan, they have Ajantha Mendis to contend with from the other end."

"With a decision like that, it either goes your way or it doesn't," he said.

"You either give away a few boundaries trying to get a wicket or the batsman relaxes a bit and somehow or other you turn up with a wicket.

"Mahela did just that and Taylor was strangled down the leg side which isn't the best way to get out.

"It was an important wicket, but Mahela has bowled for us in the past so it wasn't strange for him to get a wicket for us."

"If you look back through this Test match, we weren't as effective as we could have been on that first morning," New Zealand skipper Daniel Vettori said.

"We won a good toss and we made some inroads, but I think the way they batted, particularly the way Dilshan batted, it took the game away from us and it was the difference in both innings between the sides."

"I'm pretty pleased with the way we played their two spinners, Muralitharan and Mendis," he said.

"All the talk coming into this Test match was about what quality bowlers they were.

"And they certainly are, but I think a lot of our guys coming up against them for the first time played them really well and it was pleasing moving forward to the second Test coming in Colombo."

Vettori explained: "We've had nine of our guys go down with food poisoning and over the next couple of days I suppose they will get their energy back so that we have a full squad to pick from in the next Test match. I'm pretty confident of it."