SYDNEY, Jan 2 - Sri Lanka will use the example of their remarkable turnaround on their last tour of South Africa to try and rescue a face-saving third test victory against Australia, captain Mahela Jayawardene said on Wednesday.
The bruised and battered tourists were thrashed by an innings and 201-runs inside two and a half days at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) last week to give Australia an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series.
They also lost four
players to injury which left the captain struggling to name a side for
Thursday's start to the match with wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene and fast bowler Nuwan Kulasekara still major doubts.
Jayawardene said that however painful the Melbourne
loss had been, a first test win for his country in Australia and a
victorious end to his second stint as captain were still possible.
"The emphasis has been to try and get over that test match,"
Jayawardene, who will step down as skipper after the tour, told
reporters. "It happened to us in Centurion last summer where we lost in
two and a half days to South Africa and we bounced back in Durban to win the test match.
"So it's about guys
owning responsibility and doing something about it. We are up against a
strong Australian side, who are playing some really good cricket. We
need to play to our potential and show we can stand up to that."
Sri Lanka lost by
an innings in Cape Town in late 2011 before beating the South Africans
by 208 runs in Durban, although they lost the third test and the series.
Jayawardene conceded the Sri Lankans
had not been at their best in Australia and to make the most of
prolific wicket-taker Rangana Herath's spin bowling, they needed to be
in the match in the closing stages.
"If you sit down and look at what we've achieved in
this series, it's not hard to say that we haven't done enough and that
we need to stand up and be counted," he said.
"The best way that
we can win a test match is to try and create a situation for Rangana on a
slow turner so we just have to make sure, until the fourth or fifth
day, we execute a good game plan and stay in the game," he said.
Although Prasanna would need a late fitness test to
determine if he could play at all let alone keep wickets with an injured
thumb, Dinesh Chandimal will definitely replace the injured Kumar
Sangakkara, Jayawardene said.
"He's a middle-order batsman who we've always wanted to invest in," said the captain.
"Prasanna did not
keep wickets the other day, we wanted to give him a couple of days to
see how his finger is doing.
"Today he'll have a
fitness test to see whether he can bat and keep ... (and) once we'll
make a call on Prasanna then we'll decide where we need to go with that
extra vacant position in the line-up."
Whoever was selected, the outgoing captain said the Sri Lankans must make their huge batting experience count.
"We can't control how the Aussies are going to bowl but we can control how we bat against it," he said.
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