Mathews frustrated with lack of bowling reserves

A visibly agitated Angelo Mathews fronted the media on the eve of Sri Lanka's first Test against Australia in Kandy. It's been a hard couple of months for the Sri Lankan captain, whose poor run with the bat in England was compounded by the team's poor results across formats. Barely a month after their England debacle, Sri Lanka return to the familiar conditions at home but nagging issues still need addressing.

Sri Lanka are already without their frontline pacers Dhammika Prasad, Dushmantha Chameera and Shaminda Eranga and to add to Mathews's woes, Suranga Lakmal is suffering from a hamstring injury and is a doubt for the game at Pallekele.

"It has been a very frustrating few months. Not only one bowler, we've lost so many," Mathews said on Monday (July 25). "Vandersay is one of our key bowlers in the spin department. It's very frustrating to see them going down. The workload has been very high when they play all three formats. When they play continuously, the body eventually gets tired. It's very hard to divide those players when it comes to Tests, one-dayers and Twenty20s. We haven't got a wide range of choices to make and pick from. The bowlers who are fit - they've got no choice but to play all three formats."

In their present predicament, Mathews sees a bigger role for the coaches and support staff to ensure that the players coming through ramp up to the rigours of international cricket.

"The coaches in the back end have to do a lot of work to produce players, and also try to get them fit. We need more players coming through the ranks, so the coaches have a bigger job to play for the next one-and-a-half years. If the fast bowlers are injured, we need fast bowlers. At the international level, I can't go as a captain and say we don't have bowlers. If we don't have them, we need to know how to produce them.
"Actually, as back-up staff, we need to try and look for more new players and get them ready and fit. We can't always keep saying, 'the bowlers are injured, we haven't got that many bowlers'. We need to try and find them if we don't have them."

However, Mathews acknowledged he's happy with the way the batting line-up was shaping up. "I'm actually happy with the current opening pair," he pointed out. "Especially in England - in tough conditions - I thought they put up some good efforts. All the batsmen lacked getting those big hundreds. If we can be more consistent and convert those 30s, 40s and 50s into 100s and 150s, that would be ideal. Our opening combination is going to be the key part in our batting unit. If they can get the shine off the ball and try and send the bowlers into their second and third spells, that would be ideal."