SSC pitch surprises Sri Lanka as they changed their minds when they saw the pitch in terms of team combination.
Sri Lanka surprised by uneven bounce on ‘unusual’ SSC pitch.
There are two main types of pitches at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo. The gigantic run-fest flatbeds of the late aughts were among them. They have tended to be big-turning dustbowls ever since.
However, both Bangladeshi batsman Shadman Islam and Sri Lankan batting coach Thilina Kandamby agree that the second Test match between the two countries is on an odd course. This is the location of Shadman’s first Test match. Kandamby spent over ten years playing domestic cricket here. However, they have both come to the same conclusion, which is that this pitch is surprisingly hard to bat on.
“It’s a two-paced wicket, when it usually has even bounce here,” Kandamby said after the first day’s play. “This is an unusual wicket at SSC because I’ve been playing here for almost 15 years. This is a totally different wicket. With the uneven bounce, even we were surprised by it.”
“I think the wicket was a little bit slow,” he said. “You cannot score runs without playing shots. We played shots [during the first Test] in Galle too where those ended in boundaries. But unfortunately, maybe it was not our day today.”
“It’s very different conditions to Galle,” Kandamby said. “It was more batting-friendly than previous Galle wickets, and Bangladesh batted brilliantly. But here, we planned a few things about how to get them out, and some of those plans worked. We’d actually been hoping to play three seamers, but decided not to after coming here and seeing the wicket. For me, it’s an unusual SSC track.”