COLOMBO, AUG 8: The Sri Lankan team management took pains to underline that their prime objective was to win matches with the aim of achieving their goal of becoming the best Test team in the world by the year 2000.Manager Duleep Mendis opined: ``We go into every Test with the idea of winning it, be it at home or abroad. But if somewhere along the lines circumstances change, then we adapt our game according to the prevailing situation.''Skipper Arjuna Ranatunga said that his teammates are ``very, very keen to get a result'' in the second Test against India starting at the Singhalese Sports Club (SSC) tomorrow.The Lankans have been facing much criticism - some vocal but most muffled - by mainly non-Lankans for the manner in which they pursued the records in the high-scoring drawn first Test at the Premadasa Stadium. Among the noted voices of disapproval was Greg Chappell, the former Australian captain, who found it difficult to accept their misplaced priorities.However, when Ranatunga was asked if he would have traded a Test win for all those records, he said: ``For sure, any day. Individual interests cannot supercede team goals. I am not a great believer in records, but if there is one in sight, I would like the player to go for himself and the country. It's a nice feeling.''He added that Lanka went for all those records without compromising the team's interests as there was nothing much to achieve in the match by way of a result.It was obvious that the negative feedback they were getting was turning out to be sore point. It became apparent when an Indian reporter quizzed Mendis on why Sri Lanka did not effect an early declaration in the first Test. Mendis' curt answer was: ``I thought the media briefing about the first Test was a closed chapter after the game.''Asked how he could justify Lanka's professed goal of becoming the best team by the year 2000 with wickets like the one prepared for the first Test, Mendis finally admitted: ``We have to win Tests if we have to become the best. There is no point in getting big totals.''Ranatunga was emphatic that the SSC wicket will be a result-oriented one while Mendis gave an added meaning to it by saying that the toss would be very crucial.Mendis said that the team management does not have much say in the preparation of the wickets, but at the same time it's only to be expected that the track will favour the home team. ``That's the way it is all over the world,'' he pointed out.The Lankan manager said that his bowlers did not bowl well in the first Test. ``They bowled too short and far too wide outside,'' he said. But he added that it's the bowlers who have done well for Lanka in recent matches against New Zealand and the West Indies. ``In both places, it were the batsmen, who failed.''Both Sachin Tendulkar and Ranatunga believed that they are going into the second Test without any hangovers of the first. Said Ranatunga: ``It's a different game, a different situation and a different ground.''Tendulkar, on the other hand, said that ``whatever had to happen has happened. We are going into the game tomorrow free of any thoughts about the first Test.''Asked if he was thinking in terms of paying Lanka by the same coin, Tendulkar replied: ``We have come here to win matches and not set records. What I and the rest of the team are aspiring for is a Test victory which will help us boost our confidence and put us back on the rails again.''He said on these tracks it would have been better to play with SG or Duke balls than the Kookabura balls. He explained that the SG and Duke balls starts swinging after 15 or 20 overs all over again. ``There is a stage when it stops swinging for a while and then it starts to help the reverse swing. Bowlers look forward to fresh spells unlike now when they just do it out of formality.''
