da dobrowin： Captain Carl Hooper paid tribute to Sri Lanka after their three-nil drummingand hoped that his inexperienced side would learn from the humblingexperience
Charlie Austin03-Dec-2001Captain Carl Hooper paid tribute to Sri Lanka after their three-nil drummingand hoped that his inexperienced side would learn from the humblingexperience.”Like I was after the first two Test matches, I am very disappointed,” hesaid. “At the end of the day we tried our best but didn’t achieve thedesired result.”I think they played well this series. They have got some class acts andsome good exciting players – just like we have – it’s just unfortunate thatwe weren’t able to put them under pressure, as I would liked to have seenhow they responded.””I have not seen a lot of Chaminda Vaas but after showing us a little bitof reverse swing in the first two Tests he really put his hand up here andbowled well. He’s obviously learnt over the years and even though thewickets are flat he can certainly swing it. We have a lot of respect for himand we can learn from him.”But West Indies problem was not just with the batting, but also with thebowling, which looked utterly impotent at times, as Sri Lanka piled upscores of 590 for nine in Galle and 627 for nine.”We were not as penetrative as we needed to be in the bowling department andI am concerned with the manner in which Sri Lanka were able to put up hugetotals fairly comfortably.”Brian Lara scored heavily and Ramnaresh Sarwan looked good but we neededsome of the other batters to chip in with three-figure scores.”Questioned as to the poor performance of the openers, he said: “The qualityof the opposition had something to do with it. I think Vaas worked out Chris(Gayle) early on and I think he should become a better player for it. Daren(Ganga), after getting a few starts, has struggled little bit. But I amoptimistic that they can come good for us.”But Hooper had nothing but praise of Brian Lara who scored 688 runs in theseries, including three centuries, and with some help from Ramnaresh Sarwanhad consistently resisted the Sri Lankan bowlers.”There has been a lot said in the Caribbean about Brian (Lara) being pasthis best but he is very important to this team and he was the differencebetween the Test matches lasting five days rather than three. We hope hisform continues and that some of the other batters can stick with him.