GALLE–A bruised and bat­tered West In­dies trav­elled to Colom­bo yes­ter­day to be­gin prepa­ra­tion for the sec­ond and fi­nal Test against Sri Lan­ka which bowls off on Thurs­day at the P Sara Oval.The Caribbean side was giv­en a bat­ter­ing in the open­ing Test, go­ing down by an in­nings and six runs in­side four days on Sat­ur­day, to fall be­hind in the two-Test se­ries.

West In­dies will have on­ly a short turn-around time in be­tween match­es as they seek to make tweaks to the dis­ap­point­ing per­for­mance which saw them ex­tend their un­en­vi­able record of hav­ing nev­er won a Test on Sri Lankan soil.

At the heart of the West In­dies woes was their brit­tle bat­ting. Re­spond­ing to Sri Lan­ka's mas­sive first in­nings to­tal of 484 all out, the tourists twice suf­fered bat­ting col­laps­es to crash for 251 in their first in­nings and then 227 in their sec­ond in­nings, fol­low­ing-on.New cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er said his side would need to im­prove in this area of they are to com­pete in Colom­bo.

"We just need to ap­ply our­selves a bit more with the bat and hope­ful­ly put some runs [on the board] in the sec­ond Test," Hold­er point­ed out.West In­dies were ripped apart by left-arm spin­ner Ran­gana Herath who picked up six for 68 in the first in­nings and re­turned to take four for 79 in the sec­ond, for his fifth ten-wick­et match haul in Tests.

Hold­er ex­plained that an­oth­er cru­cial as­pect to the up­com­ing Test would be the Windies bats­men im­prov­ing their ap­proach to Herath."I think we need to be a lit­tle more pa­tient when we're bat­ting him, and just be a lit­tle more pos­i­tive and de­ci­sive. Once we do that in the sec­ond Test, we will be a lot bet­ter off," the 23-year-old not­ed.

He al­so point­ed to the field­ing, which proved a let-down. West In­dies floored four catch­es dur­ing the Sri Lan­ka in­nings with Di­nesh Chandi­mal, who struck 151, get­ting two lives.Hold­er stressed this was a key part of their game which need­ed to be ad­dressed.

"I think we've got to hold our chances. Again, I go back to that [Sri Lan­ka] first in­nings–once we hold our chances, the score­card could [have looked] a lot dif­fer­ent," he con­tend­ed.

"Hav­ing said that, Herath bowled well and got ten wick­ets...and I thought their fast bowlers sup­port­ed well. If we can take a leaf from their book, just prob­a­bly be a big more dis­ci­plined as we were in the first in­nings and then hold our chances, that will be the key go­ing for­ward."

CMC