Angelo Mathews praises 'world class' Indian pacers

New Delhi: After an intriguing day of Test cricket in Kolkata, Sri Lanka find their noses just, and this was possible only because of the efforts of Lahiru Thirimanne and former captain Angelo Mathews who stitched a 99 partnership for the 3rd wicket.

Mathews heaped praise on the Indian bowling attack for making his team work extremely hard to get their runs.

"Shami, Bhuvneshwar and Umesh are world class, fast bowlers. It was a challenging wicket. All three fast bowlers bowled well. They are very skilful and keep coming at you. You can't relax. If you see the loose balls, they were very few," Mathews told the press after the day’s play.

He also said that he has confidence in his own batting unit and believes that if they stick around and put their head down to grind it out, they are good enough to score runs in any conditions.

Also, he said that he now hopes that the other batsmen in the team make sure that they score centuries. However, he conceded that the pitch is still lively and has plenty of assistance to offer the seam bowlers.

“As we have seen on this wicket, the liveliness has been there right throughout and it offers a lot for fast bowlers throughout. You have got to forget about the last ball and try and score as many as possible, wait for the loose ball and then score runs," Mathews added.

After the end of the 3rd day’s play, Sri Lanka are placed in a relatively comfortable position at 165/4 and are just seven runs adrift of India’s first innings total.

Dinesh Chandimal and Niroshan Dickwella are the creases and they would ideally want to get a lead in excess of a hundred runs to put the hosts under some strife.

After two days of incessant rains which made the pitch extremely notorious for batting, Sri Lankan batsmen were welcomed by bright patches of sunshine which eased the pitch and made their job easier.

However, there is still some life on the track and the Indian bowlers will pound back again on the fourth day, and this contest promises to be an intriguing affair.