Hamilton pitch ‘understandably doctored’: Jayaratne

WELLINGTON: In Dunedin, Sri Lanka were exposed to howling winds cold enough to bring with them a hailstorm on the fourth evening.

Players complained about the temperature all week, and as often happens with Sri Lanka, cold hands led to a lukewarm fielding performance — no fewer than four chances were missed in the second innings.

They have arrived in the North Island’s warmer climes, but oh dear, something even more uncomfortable may await them. The pitch, they have discovered, is not the dry deck they expected. Two days out, it is more than green — it’s verdant. There is so much grass on the surface, that for now, it’s virtually indistinguishable from the rest of the square.

Having studied past scorecards, Sri Lanka had hoped Hamilton would be the most spin-friendly Test venue of the four they have encountered in New Zealand, in the past year. Interim head coach Jerome Jayaratne has all but abandoned those expectations.

“My intelligence tells me that it has been known to take spin as the game goes on,” Jayaratne said. “But I am assuming here that the wicket has been doctored to suit the New Zealanders, which is understandable. There is more than 18 millimetres of grass on the wicket.”

The Seddon Park track has had a reputation for taking spin, particularly while Daniel Vettori plied his trade there for Northern Districts. It has also been kind to visiting spinners in the recent past.

West Indies offspinner Sunil Narine took 6 for 91 in an innings, in the most recent Test there. Pakistan’s Abdur Rehman had also prospered in 2011, when he took 3 for 51 and 3 for 24.

Partly because of those results, Sri Lanka had brought three specialist spinners on tour. Offspinner Dilruwan Perera and uncapped legbreak bowler Jeffrey Vandersay have traveled with the squad, but the visitors may not have a chance to use those bowlers in the series.

“I think this pitch will have a lot more bounce and carry than the one in Dunedin,” Jayaratne said. “They’re looking for a lot of moisture and sideways movement. I think it will be different from the Hamilton wickets before. As the game goes on, it might slow down, but for now there’s a lot of grass on the track.”

The appearance of the surface also brings Sri Lanka’s batting quandary into sharp focus. They had batted very conservatively in Dunedin, batting out 50.4 overs more than New Zealand, though they were still short by 122 runs. Captain Angelo Mathews had blamed that loss partly on his batsmen’s reticence, but with more fraught batting conditions now expected in Hamilton, Sri Lanka may mull the merits of conservatism again.

“The batting approach is a debatable one, and we’ve been discussing this during as well as after the game,” Jayaratne said. “In the recent past we have not gone past 75 overs, and we managed to bat 117 and 95 overs in that first Test. They need to occupy the crease out there as well - but at the same time you need to get runs. Maybe you would have been slightly negative. We couldn’t raise our run rate during the game. But it’s a very experienced bowling attack and you hardly get opportunities. Dinesh Chandimal and Dimuth Karunaratne got runs by occupying the wicket.”

Jayaratne expressed faith in the “talent and skill” of his top order, however. He suggested it was the development of Test-match temperament that marked Sri Lanka’s route to improvement.