Happy to get Virat Kohli out, says Nuwan Pradeep

Pradeep stressed that he remained intense right through and that helped him get his maiden five-for in Tests.

Pradeep: 'I trained like normal with the bouncer. With the way the wicket was today, the bouncer became effective'.

Nuwan Pradeep perhaps is a man of few words and many wickets. Or may be he is just painfully shy. After his career-best haul of six for 132 against India in the first Test, the Sri Lankan spearhead with fast bowling coach Chaminda Vaas as a translator, told the media that he relished Virat Kohli’s wicket.

Explaining his modus-operandi, Pradeep said in Sinhala: “Though I didn’t start well, I got better as I kept bowling. I got some rhythm. Kohli is one of the best batsmen in the world. I am very happy to have got him out.”

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Pradeep stressed that he remained intense right through and that helped him get his maiden five-for in Tests. “When you get four wickets, you have to bowl 15 to 16 overs, and you are very tired after that. If you are bowling more than that you still have to maintain that intensity and still bowl quickly. I did that and bowled fast in my later spells. I think I couldn’t get to that fifth wicket before because of tiredness."

 

And as for employing the bouncer, Pradeep said: “I trained like normal with the bouncer. With the way the wicket was today, the bouncer became effective.”

Short-ball strategy

Vaas too shared his thoughts and when asked about the bouncers used against the Indian line-up, he replied: “We had a few plans as well, but we saw that the wicket is really good for batting. We thought of surprising the Indian batsmen by bowling a few bouncers.”

Looking ahead, Vaas said: “At the moment Angelo Mathews and Dilruwan Perera are batting well, so tomorrow hopefully they will stay at the wicket and bat well until lunch. If we can bat until tea we might be able to escape danger.”