Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford hails Dinesh Chandimal’s best hundred

Sri Lanka coach Graham Ford is surprised by how quickly his side have bounced back from a poor World T20 and tour of England. He also praised Dinesh Chandimal for assuming extra responsibility and maturity.

At 26/5 in the first innings, Dinesh Chandimal put on 211 runs for the sixth wicket with Dhananjaya de Dilva. Although a naturally attacking batsman, Chandimal showed great composure and maturity in building crucial partnerships with the lower order to help them to 355.

Speaking about his knock in the first innings, Ford described it as his “best hundred”. He said: "Chandi's probably enjoyed the other fine innings that he's played, but this was probably the most valuable innings he's played. I know he played a blinder against India sometime back, but this one for temperament and fight in difficult conditions goes down as his best hundred. "

Ford also described the conditions that the pair were batting in as "not fun at all". "Chandi's certainly showed a lot of maturity and he helped Dhananjaya through that big innings of his. Batting in those circumstances is not fun at all," he said.

"I think Chandi took on the hard work, which shows great maturity. It's something that the team are talking a lot about - about doing the hard work for the rest of the team, doing the hard work for their mates. Chandi showed a real example of that, digging in and fighting really hard."

Ford surprised by Sri Lanka's resurgence

Having beaten the No.1 ranked Test side and with young players like Kusal Mendis, Lakshan Sandakan and Dhananjaya de Silva all making their mark, Ford has been surprised by how well they have played.

"In one of the first press conferences that I had when I took over again, I said that you just can't put a time frame on how long the rebuilding process will take," Ford said. "But the way some of the young guys are starting to put in high-quality performances - I wasn't expecting that to happen as quickly as it has, against such high quality opposition.

He praised the selectors for giving the youngsters an opportunity but isn't getting carried away with how well they have performed.

" It's been exciting to see and I'm a little bit surprised to see them doing as well as quick they have. But we've still got a long, long way to go," Ford said. "They will still disappoint us from time to time. But with the attitude that they've got and the work ethic, we've seen some exciting signs for the future."

The coach though admitted that the batting order is still a "work in progress" and admitted that they are thinking about de Silva opening the batting, like he does for his first-class side.

"I think the batting order is still a work in progress. Some of these young guys that are batting in the lower order are top-order players. They may in time be moved up the order. That's something that we'll have to think long and hard about.”