The Steven Smith-led side was thrashed 3-0 by the hosts, after which the skipper admitted that the team's preparation cannot be doubted as they landed in Sri Lanka well in advance and had very good practice sessions. Despite a good build-up to the series, the visitors could not cross 200 in four out of the six innings in the series.
"If you have a look going back in time over recent years, some of our Test cricketers are playing more in India than they've ever played before. They're used to subcontinental conditions through their experiences in the IPL and on other tours representing Australia. These are conditions we are more familiar with perhaps than we have been in decades gone by, and it comes back to the ability to adapt. That's something I'll be interested to hear more about," Sutherland said.
"We're certainly disappointed with the performances of the team in this Sri Lankan series and the review will tell us more, but I don't think we can complain in terms of the preparation we had over there in Sri Lanka," he added.
Out of the 60 wickets, Australia lost 54 of them to spinners, with Rangana Herath being the wrecker-in-chief - accounting for 28 scalps. Pundits blamed lack of adaptability to spin-friendly conditions as a few of the Australian batsmen threw their wickets away due to their inability to pose a good defensive game. Sutherland too agreed on those lines and stressed upon the importance of winning away from home.
"The critical thing is adaptability to conditions and that's what we ought to understand better. Clearly conditions here are very different to England, which are very different to what we see on the subcontinent, and to be the best team in the world, to be the No. 1 team, you need to be able to win away, and that's what we're about," the 51-year-old opined.
Although the surfaces in Pallekele, Galle and Colombo assisted the spinners, they were clearly not rated as rank-turners and it was only down to technique and versatility. Shaun Marsh and Steven Smith showed what patience can do in such conditions by notching up hundreds in the final Test match. While urging the team to adapt better, Sutherland maintained that all is lost for Australia.
"I don't think there would be any expectation gaps in terms of the facilities and the pitch condition we expected to find over there. I don't think things are clearly broken, but at the same time we need to get better at adapting to conditions. In different parts of the country there are pitches prepared for different situations, certainly we've got hybrid pitches that have been developed at the NCC (National Cricket Centre), they're things that we're continuing to progress. But it's one thing to have those conditions and facilities, another to provide opportunities for players to do that," he explained.
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