Chasing 268 for victory on the final day, the Steve Smith-led side collapsed to the guile of veteran spinner Rangana Herath and lost by 106 runs despite a heroic resistance from wicketkeeper Peter Nevill and the injured left-arm spinner Steve O'Keefe. Another failure against spin left Smith dejected but the captain retained hope of changing his side's poor run of results in the subcontinent.
"It is disappointing," Smith said after the defeat on Saturday (July 30). "I said before the game that we haven't played well in subcontinent conditions for quite a while now. It's something that, under my captaincy, I want to change. There were glimpses throughout this game that we've improved in some aspects but I think we just let ourselves down a lot as well."
There was some criticism levelled upon Smith's own performance with the bat, especially his dismissal in the first innings. As Smith and Usman Khawaja were rebuilding following the early loss of David Warner and Joe Burns, the skipper stepped out to Herath very early on day two and got stumped.
"I generally play spinners quite aggressively," he said. "I've hit that ball for four or six several times throughout my career. I got beaten on the inside of the bat. It's just summing it up and making sure I play with a straighter bat if I'm trying to go over the top. I know it looked ugly and it probably didn't look great. For me, it's about making sure I still have that intent to score."
With O'Keefe now ruled out of the series with a hamstring injury, Smith pinned his hopes on replacement spinner Jon Holland to step up in the second Test at Galle, a venue where spin is expected to play a major role again.
"Galle is the biggest spinning place here in Sri Lanka, or so we've been told so it's going to play a big part again," Smith said. "Jon Holland is a class bowler, he's done pretty well in state cricket and having a left-arm orthodox bowler in these conditions is a must. He's accurate, he hits a good area and hopefully we can see some of the same as what we saw from Steve and Rangana, with some balls spinning and some balls skidding. It's incredibly hard to play against and I'm looking forward to him getting here and having a couple of days' preparation with us.
"He and I went to the academy together so we know each other reasonably well and I'm sure he'll fit in well around this group. There's always challenges when you're playing international cricket, especially away from home. He's going to have to get a game plan and the speeds that he needs to bowl together pretty quickly. We'll be working with him to make sure he gets that in and I'm really excited for him to join us."
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