Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva torched for ‘absolute garbage’ effort in first Test against Australia

Sri Lanka captain Dhananjaya de Silva has been slammed for throwing away his wicket during the second innings of the first Test against Australia.

The Aussies were cruising to a massive victory after enforcing the follow-on, but de Silva and Kusal Mendis had combined for a 50-run partnership to at least provide some resistance.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Dhananjaya de Silva falls cheaply.

However, after crushing a boundary to get his side to 5-179, de Silva attempted the same shot only to pick out Beau Webster for a regulation catch.

While the wicket wouldn’t have mattered in the grand scheme of things, it did spark a collapse as Australia quickly dismissed the tail to wrap up the innings and 242-run victory.

Channel 7 commentator Greg Blewett was scathing in his assessment of de Silva.

“Absolute garbage from the captain,” he said on Channel 7 commentary.

“That’s just not good enough.

“Your side is going down and he has tried to hit that on the up inside out.

“That is not a shot that your captain needs to be playing in these sort of circumstances.

“Totally unnecessary, and as I said, from your captain, it is very disappointing.

“It was a shot that had no discipline attached to it.”

Blewett added that with the potential for rain to come, he should have led by example and fought hard.

“As we know, just about every afternoon some rain has come in Sri Lanka. It may not be that far away,” he continued.

“We haven’t seen a radar or anything but you fight, you fight, you fight until you possibly can.

“I just thought that was a wicket that was given away far too easily. I mean we have seen a few and he is not the lone ranger but he is also the captain, as I have pointed out.”

Sri Lankan coach Sanath Jayasuriya didn’t single out the wicket post-match, but did concede a number of senior players made poor shot selections.

“The shot selections were not the best,” Jayasuriya said.

“Our experienced guys should know how to play and how to adjust themselves to different situations.”

Jayasuriya was also left to rue missed opportunities, but pointed to recent history for evidence the hosts can level the series when the second match begins in seaside Galle on Thursday.

“They outplayed us, they played positive cricket and they got runs on the board. That was the key,” Jayasuriya said.

The loss was Sri Lanka’s largest in Test history, eclipsing a painful defeat to India by an innings and 239 runs in 2017.

But things could have been different had the hosts taken their chances on a dominant first day of Australian batting.

Usman Khawaja (232) was dropped twice and survived Sri Lanka’s decision not to review a caught-behind chance as he made his way to a 16th Test century.

Stand-in captain Steve Smith was put down by Prabath Jayasuriya from his own bowling on one run, and would go on to add 140 more.

Sri Lanka had earlier declined what would have been a successful lbw review on Travis Head (57) and missed a run-out chance on Marnus Labuschagne (20), though those errors proved less expensive.

“We can’t control (losing) the toss but we should’ve controlled the first session of the game,” coach Jayasuriya said.

“It would’ve been a different story altogether if we got some wickets. That was the key. Then they batted really well, Khawaja and Smith both.

“You need to take your half-chances, even the review, if you think it’s a half you have to go for it. We missed those.”

But Sri Lanka need only look at Australia’s last tour for evidence they can level the series in Galle, where conditions can be unpredictable from match to match.

Australia won the first Test by 10 wickets in 2022 on the back of some surprise off-spin brilliance from Travis Head (4-10) and Cameron Green’s half-century.

But in the second, middle-order veteran Dinesh Chandimal made an unbeaten double-hundred to power the hosts to victory by an innings and 39 runs – their largest-ever defeat of Australia.

Six players from that victorious team, including five of the top-six batters, featured in the recent loss to Australia.

“We are capable of doing the change,” said Jayasuriya.

“(In 2022) they lost badly in the first game, they came back and they did well. We have to do well.”

Sri Lanka are hoping to make at least one change to their XI for the second Test with opening batter Pathum Nissanka a chance to recover from a groin issue.

“If he’s fit, definitely Pathum is in. We haven’t decided anything else now,” Jayasuriya said.

– With AAP