Bayliss

While Trevor Bayliss rued no luck going his side’s way on the opening day of the second Test Match here at the Bellerive Oval, the coach was pleased with the effort his players gave. Bayliss felt that had Sri Lanka put the same effort in Brisbane on the first day, they could have avoided the humiliating defeat in Queensland.
"The positive out of the day is that the guys haven’t given up. They’ve been putting in 100 percent and maybe a bit more. I am disappointed that they weren’t there in Brisbane, where we didn’t field as quite well as we did here. It is very difficult for any bowler and probably difficult for the Australian bowlers too," Bayliss said at the post play media conference.
"There’s a lot of hard work to do. We’ve got no illusions of how difficult the task is, but to their credit they are here to not only try and compete with Australia but they’ve gone into the two matches before hand with a positive outlook. Certainly we were outplayed in the first Test, but hopefully we can knock the rest of the guys tomorrow and bat well in the first innings which will be the key," he added.
Sri Lanka struggled against the new ball in first innings in Brisbane and Bayliss said seeing off the new ball will be the key while batting. "The battle for us is to get through the new ball and as we showed up in Brisbane in the second innings if we do that, we’ve got guys who can bat for a long time."
Michael Hussey notched up his second successive hundred and is unbeaten on 101 with Michael Clarke, the other centurion in Brisbane on eight.
"Hussey is very strong all around the ground. What you do need is very good discipline. That’s an area that we need to work on a little bit. We have been certainly disciplined for 10 overs and then the discipline goes away when the plan hasn’t worked rather than sticking to it. The Australians stick to their plans very well and they bowl a lot of balls in those good areas and eventually get wickets. We’ve got to try and learn from that and be even more disciplined and bowl even more balls in those wicket taking areas," he remarked.
The coach was also full of praise for Dilhara Fernando, whose selection over Chaminda Vaas had got a bit of stick. "Dilhara is one guy in the team who gives 100 percent. I thought in the Brisbane Test he tried to give 150 percent on day one. Really tried to charge in and bowl fast and probably tried to bowl too fast. Today he didn’t probably bowl quite at his best but it certainly wasn’t bad. We all got a few things to work on with our pace bowlers. He’s played with a niggling ankle injury for the last 4-5 months and he’s one guy in the team who has not winged about it even once."