Sri Lanka surprised by uneven bounce on 'unusual' SSC pitch

Pitches at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) in Colombo tend to come in two varieties. There were the mega run-fest flatbeds of the late aughts. Since then, they have tended to be be big-turning dustbowls.

But the track for the second Test between Sri Lanka and Bangladesh is unusual, as Bangladesh batter Shadman Islam and Sri Lanka batting coach Thilina Kandamby agree. Shadman is playing his first Test at this venue. Kandamby played domestic cricket here for more than a decade. But they've both arrived at roughly the same conclusion: this pitch is unexpectedly difficult 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."

Shadman, who is currently top-scorer for Bangladesh with 46 off 93 balls, also said that run-scoring was not easy. At least four of Bangladesh's top seven batters were out playing aggressive strokes, including Shadman himself.

"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."

Having batted longer than anyone on this track, Shadman felt that 270 or 280 would be a good first-innings score for Bangladesh, who ended day one at 220 for 8. He also said there was enough juice in this pitch for Bangladesh's own bowlers to exploit during Sri Lanka's innings.

"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."