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Bangladesh pacers missed out on their chances to get early breakthroughs against Sri Lanka, admitted their pace bowling coach Shaun Tait on Thursday.

Sri Lanka scored heavily in their first innings, with a rate of 3.95 per over in their innings of 368-4 after fielding for more than two days.

The hosts scored 202 runs for the first two wickets, with Pathum Nissanka scoring a brilliant 187.

When asked about the scoring rate of Sri Lanka, Tait said, ‘I think they batted really well. SL are no pushovers. This is the team that was competing for the WTC final. They are a good side with good batters.’

Tait praised his bowlers’ effort but also said that they could have done a better job, especially at the start of the innings.

‘We could have started better with the first new ball,’ said the former Australian fast bowler.

 ‘We probably missed out. They know that. That’s all you can ask for.

‘The pacers missed a trick with the new ball. It would have been nice if they had taken a couple of wickets with the new ball. I am not going to be negative [about bowling]. We batted for two days. It is a good batting wicket.

‘You bowl on a different day on a different wicket; you get a different result. We batted for two days. It is one of those good batting wickets,’ he further said.

Despite its history of being spin-friendly, the Galle pitch behaved in an uncharacteristic way, as only 14 wickets fell in the first three days. But Tait reminded everyone that things could change dramatically.

‘I think the wicket is pretty good. It has stayed similar. It hasn’t changed a great deal. Today was a good batting day; we saw that,’ he said.

‘It probably hasn’t spun as much as maybe people thought it would on the third day. Normally Galle starts to turn a bit more. It turned a little but nothing significant. There are still a couple of days left. Test cricket can change pretty quickly. There’s hard work to be done,’ he added.

Bangladesh, however, got an important breakthrough when Hasan Mahmud bowled Nissanka with the second new ball seven overs prior to the finish of the day’s play.

Tait wants to take that as a positive sign.

‘It is his job,’ Tait said on Hasan’s wicket. ‘Spin is going to take a lot of the overs, so his [Hasan’s] job is to try to get a wicket with the new ball. Hit middle stump. It was a good ball. You have to take little wins to the shed on this wicket at the end of the day. It is a positive.’

The way Sri Lanka batted, one could raise the question of whether Bangladesh could up their tempo a bit, especially after losing the last six wickets for just 37 runs. But Tait didn’t want to walk along that path.

 ‘I think we would have taken that score at the start of the game. We got a good score. We batted for two days. We can’t ask much more than that from Bangladesh. I am not going to be critical of our batters,’ he said.