From the fans in the stands and on the Fort, to the dominance on the pitch, Australians have enjoyed their time in Galle
Andrew Fidel Fernando09-Feb-2025On the ramparts of the fort that overlooks the ground at Galle, a banner has fluttered all series, reading “Shane Warne Stand”. This is a fitting installation at a venue that Warne had helped get back on its feet following the 2004 tsunami. Another banner -“Cmon Aussie cmon” – has been its companion for much of the series, later replaced by “South Africa you’re next”, a reference to their forthcoming World Test Championship final tilt.Elsewhere in the ground Australia flags have been abundant. The loudest cheers have tended to be for Sri Lanka wickets, or Australia batting milestones.In the fort itself, and the restaurants and bars in the ground’s surrounds, New South Wales verses Victoria rivalries had had their regular airing, Aussie rules and rugby league supremacy have been debated, countless Ois have been yelped into humid air, and Aussie twangs have twanged at their lubricated loudest.Related
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With only five men’s Tests in the Australia home summer, this tour has felt like an extension of that fun, like the fan-serving epilogue of the novel, in which the protagonists find themselves in a tropical destination sipping cocktails out of coconut shells and frolicking their days away.Australia’s cricketers have frolicked most. Theirs has been a two-week trip of more-or-less relentless excellence. They have been so at ease with Galle’s rhythm’s it felt as if were the side enjoying the benefits of playing at home.”Bat first, bat big, and let the spinners loose,” had been the mode of operation for some of Sri Lanka’s greatest teams in Galle. In the first Test, it was Australia who made spectacular use of good batting conditions, before dealing Sri Lanka their biggest ever Test defeat by running through their batting twice.We know the story, by now. Travis Head attacked at the outset like a modern-day TM Dilshan, and Australia’s experienced batters swept and reverse swept to big scores. Right through the series, it would be Australia’s batters who understood that starting on this surface tends to be difficult, and that converting fifties into triple-figure scores was vital.Only once across the series did an Australia batter get to a half century, and fail to hunt down a ton, and that was Head, whose first-session 57 off 40 was the plough that turned the soil. Australia’s seniors then toiled day long in these fields – Steven Smith hitting 131 and 141, Usman Khawaja making 232, Alex Carey swiping his way to 156, plus the hundred on debut for Josh Inglis.Sri Lanka’s batters crossed fifty as many times but had a top score of 85 not out in the series.Australia’s batters all found their own way to score runs•Getty Images”Those wickets are tough to start on regardless of where you’re batting,” Smith said after they’d wrapped up the series 2-0. “But when you start to get the pace of the wicket and what it’s doing and how it’s responding, and you get into a partnership, things get a little bit easier.”You see so often that when you lose one wicket, the batter that’s in is a little bit unsettled, and the new batter is starting their innings, things can happen really quickly. When you do have those partnerships going, you have to make them count. Uzzie and I in the first Test, and then Alex and I in the second Test were able to do that.”As if to reinforce the point, outside of the 259-run fourth wicket partnership between Smith and Carey, Australia lost 91 for 3, then 64 for 7 in their first innings of the second Test.Australia understood too, that each batter is best off finding methods that work for their own game, rather than setting down a team-wide edict on sweeping more or skipping down the pitch. Each Australia batter who prospered has developed methods through various experiences. Khawaja famously turned around his batting against spin in 2017, Smith has now played 24 Tests in Asia, others have refined their game and added new strokes in IPL net sessions, or through other franchise opportunities. The entire effect is a top order that batted as if they were the unit born to these conditions.”I think back to when we came here in 2016 [where Australia lost 3-0], and now we’re just far better equipped to play in these conditions, and understand them a lot more than we used to,” Smith said. “The way we’ve been able to put pressure on the bowlers through all different ways has been fantastic.Spin twins: Matt Kuhnemann and Nathan Lyon shared 30 wickets in two Tests•Getty Images”I come down the wicket or sit back. Alex, Inglis, and Usman use the sweep and the reverse sweep. Marnus uses his feet. A few others are missing there, but everyone’s got different methods. But it’s a method that works for them.”Australia’s bowling returns also have taken roughly the same shape Sri Lanka hope their bowling analyses do at the end of a home series. Between them their two lead spinners have taken 30 of the 40 wickets, at times tripping over themselves to claim the next wicket when Sri Lanka were in one of their especially self-destructive phases. Mitchell Starc has backed them up with six wickets, and the allrounders have made important breakthroughs too.In 2016, Australia were the classic away team trying to force life for their seamers on dusty Sri Lanka tracks – Starc by a distance was their highest wicket-taker across those Tests, while it had been Rangana Herath and Dilruwan Perera who’d put up Nathan Lyon-Matthew Kuhnemann numbers.There had been little doubt, too, that Australia were going to field only one specialist seamer, and pack their attack with spin. From day one of this series, Australia adopted a style that seemed to be born from the soil they were playing on. Though tens of thousands of kilometres from their shores, they turned Galle into an outpost – a little Aussie festival for two weeks.