Published: Dec 20, 2012, 12:22 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 20, 2012, 12:22 PM (IST)
A video showing Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford address a press conference prior to the Boxing Day Test against Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Ford said that even though his team lost the first Test by 137 runs, he took a lot of positives out of it.
“(I am) Disappointed, but proud of the effort,” said Ford.
Ford drew encouragement from some of the Sri Lankans’ performances.
“A lot of our batsmen spent some good time in the middle…the bowling performance was better in the second innings,” he said.
“I’m hoping that as a group we are all improving and finding our feet. It’ always hard at the beginning of the tour…During the five days all our players began to find their feet and that’s encouraging.”
Sri Lanka are likely to face a full-strength Australia side on Boxing Day in Melbourne after Ben Hilfenhaus and Michael Clarke suffered a few niggles after the first game. But Ford said that the Lankans plan to focus on their game.
“We haven’t even thought about that (facing a full-strength Australia team) at this stage,” said Ford. “I think that we need to look at ourselves and look at the cricket we’re playing.
"As I’ve said, there has been some improvement already. The character shown was really important… we’ve got to stick together as a group and prepare hard and whatever eleven gets put out against us is going to be a tough side.”
