Smith - 'The pressure is on us now'

With the balance of the match firmly tilted in Sri Lanka's favour, Graeme Smith (who made 65 today) and Sanath Jayasuriya (who took five wickets) spoke about the day's play, and what tomorrow may have in store:

Graeme Smith

On South Africa's day
We didn't have a good day today. The wicket is still good to bat on, we just lost too many wickets at quick intervals. We had discussed that in our team meetings and we lost seven for 73 today and that is simply not good enough. It is important to build partnerships and we got in a rut where we couldn't stop it.

On not being asked to follow on
I was surprised that they did not enforce the follow-on, which gave us an opportunity to regroup, rethink, and come back. The longer they bat for, the less time we have to bat for.

On the next two days
We would love to chase 500 and if we get the opportunity we will do, but we have got to just set up our stall and just bat now. If we can bat for two days then we will have done bloody well. The pressure is on us now to go out there and bat for two days. We still believe we can do it as we have guys that can bat for two days, there is no doubt about that.

On the pitch
It is pretty docile for the seamers at the moment. If you play good basic cricket then the seamers shouldn't really pose any problems. For the spinners it is a different story. There are a couple of holes there where the ball is bursting out of. Still, it is not a 7-for-73 wicket. We got ourselves into a bad position today and we did not get ourselves out of it. No-one stuck in there and really tried to put in a big performance.

Sanath Jayasuriya

On his bowling
Somebody had to come up with a good bowling spell in Murali's absence and I got an opportunity to do that. I was only thinking of putting the ball in the right areas and giving some kind of support to the other end. It was not a difficult wicket to bat on and I feel South Africa were a little negative. They didn't want to play shots and that is where they lost wickets.

On Jacques Kallis's dismissal
I bowled a little bit faster than normal. I pitched it in the right area and it turned. He made the mistake of playing on the back foot to that ball.

On the match situation
We have two full days to go. Tomorrow morning we will declare and get South Africa in. We have been looking forward to a series win over South Africa for the last two or three years. This is the best opportunity we have got. I think we should capitalise on it. There has been deterioration in the pitch, but we have a lot of hard work ahead of us as the South Africans won't give their wickets away.