Finch, Mathews agree over 'poor' pitch

Australia opener Aaron Finch has slammed the pitch used in the opening ODI match against Sri Lanka, describing it as "poor" and rating it one of the most extravagant spin wickets he's encountered in his five-year international career.

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Finch, who was instrumental in Australia's hard-fought three-wicket win in the first of five ODI matches to be played in Colombo, Dambulla and Pallekele, described the amount of turn on offer from the bone dry pitch that saw balls explode through the top crust of the bare surface from the outset of the match as "extreme".

And Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews described the pitch, which changed markedly in character in the days leading into Sunday's game as all remaining grass on the surface appeared to have been 'brushed up' and shaved off, as too dry for one-day cricket.

"I don't think I've ever played on a wicket that's spun that much, it was a pretty poor wicket all round, I think," Finch, who scored 56 from 46 balls, said after the match in which Australia opted to bowl first and learned early how tough batting would be.

"For balls to be going through the top from the second over of the game – Josh Hazlewood to (Tillakaratne) Dilshan – I think that was pretty poor.

"I haven't seen any wickets really that have spun to that extreme, especially in a one-day game, for a long time.

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"I think we played quite well to track down that total (227) when it seemed like a different (Sri Lankan) spinner was bowling every over.

"They've got plenty of options and we played exceptionally well there to get across the line."

The home team employed a seven-man spin attack – including specialists and part-timers – having seen first-hand the Australian batters' struggle against quality spin bowling in the recently completed Test series that the hosts won 3-0.

But they were undone by Australia's decision to stick with the strength of its seam attack, as James Faulkner (4-38) and Mitchell Starc (3-32) kept their batters under pressure on a pitch where timing the ball with any authority was all but impossible.

Mathews called on the curator at Premadasa to leave more grass on the pitch that he is preparing for Wednesday's second match of the series after conceding the baking and denuding of the pitch for match one of the series had been a little over-zealous.

"It was a bit too dry I thought," Mathews said at game's end when asked to assess the pitch on which his team battled to reach 227 and Australia stumbled often in its reply.

"It was hard work for the batters.

"It (the ball) was stopping and gripping for the seamers' slow ones, and also it was turning square.

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"With this kind of (recent dry) weather, we knew that it was going to turn.

"(But) if the curator leaves a bit of grass (for the next match on Wednesday) maybe it will not stop and turn.

"It depends on the curator.

"It usually turns a little bit here, so it will be a dry sort of a wicket but you never know what the curator will come up with."

Finch noted that the fresh, unused strip that will be used for Wednesday's match– which is being prepared a couple of pitches further across the centre wicket block – appeared the same when inspected today as how today's pitch looked when the Australians first saw it at training last Friday.

Only for that one to take on a totally different character by Saturday evening, ahead of the coin toss on Sunday afternoon.

Which means the new pitch might undergo the same heavy pruning in the lead-up to Wednesday's match, despite the request from Sri Lanka's skipper, and even though the practice pitches at either end of the wicket block have been much more batter-friendly.

"The ones next to it that we've been training on have been pretty good wickets – they started to spin a bit yesterday," Finch said.

"But the wickets that we trained on were not even really similar (to Sunday's match wicket) to be fair.

"The one that they've prepared out there for the following game (on Wednesday) looks identical to how this one looked two days ago.

"But they obviously brushed it up and cut the grass off it.

"So it will be interesting to see which way they go, but the confidence that we got out of that win (last night), chasing on a difficult wicket … that gives us belief that we can play in all conditions now.

"To play against good spinners on a turning wicket that much, that's probably as hard as it's going to be in terms of the extreme spin.

"We saw how much the ball was spinning – it was extreme."