Batsmen need to show patience, says Bangar

Sanjay Bangar, Indian team's batting coach, demanded patience from his batsmen on a difficult pitch here at the Eden Gardens. Only 11.5 overs of play was possible on the Thursday's opening day of the first Test against Sri Lanka but India managed to lose three wickets for 17 runs in that period.  

"Yes, you'll have to grind out quite a bit because there are going to be a lot of balls which are going to beat the outside edge as well as the  inside edge of the bat," pointed out Bangar after day's play.

"We need to respect the conditions as batsmen and think about the next ball. If you start thinking or worrying about the amount of times you're getting beaten, it plays on your mind. The best mindest is to forget the previous ball and accept that you're going to get beaten on a number of occasions. Probably on such a wicket, you might not play beautiful shots, but you'll have to grind it out and take runs. So most of the runs might not be beautiful or elegant but those are equally important runs," he thought.

Bangar felt the conditions were too difficult to cope with for the Indian batsmen.

"What didn't really help us was that we didn't get an extended passage of play, wherein you had 15-20 overs bowled at a batsman in a particular fashion. So that didn't allow the batsmen to get into any sort of a rhythm. It was very similar to a day-night Test match, it didn't seem to be a day Test match. It was more like a day-night Test match and at times when you play in such circumstances (under lights), playing with the red ball becomes pretty tough because it's more difficult to pick the red ball."

Lanka's bowling coach Rumesh Ratnayake termed Suranga Lakmal's spell as one of the best he has seen in a long time.

"I would say it is one of the finest I have seen in a long time. I am not sure if it's the best spell I have seen but one of the finest I have seen for a long, long time. Saying that the wicket was very receptive, it was very helpful and it's going to be a big challenge. We were sort of expecting looking at the wicket that it was going to seam. By saying that the job isn't finished. It's only started, it's just started," he stressed.