Poor footwork cost us - Bayliss

Sri Lanka coach Trevor Bayliss blamed his batsmen's lack of footwork against the moving ball for his team's precarious position at the end of the third day of the first Test against Pakistan at Galle.

"We didn't bat very well today. The boys will be the first to admit that," Bayliss said. "It doesn't matter where you play in the world, if the ball is moving and you are caught on the crease most of the time against quality bowling, you are going to be dismissed. If you look at (Thilan) Samaraweera's innings against the pace bowlers he would get a full stride in and get to the ball before it had a chance to move too far."

Bayliss made these comments after Sri Lanka was dismissed in their second innings for 217 leaving Pakistan a target of 168 to go one up in the three-Test series. By stumps Pakistan had wiped out 71 of those runs losing two wickets.

"We haven't played well enough. We bowled well enough to give them only a 50-run lead. If you add another 50 onto the 160 and you are chasing 210 or 220 it might be a different story," Bayliss said. "But still we are in with a small chance and we are going to try and take hold of that tomorrow.

"We need to take some early wickets in the morning, hopefully we get a few overnight showers and the covers left on and some clouds overhead so that the ball will nip around a little bit like it has done a couple of times in this match. It's going to be difficult but if we take a couple of early wickets, you never know.

"The wicket's been a bit docile after the shine has gone off the ball. That might have something to do with the cloud cover we had two out of the three days which has not allowed the wicket to really dry out and start to crumble a little bit. It's holding together pretty well. That might have an effect on it I am not quite sure."

Bayliss said that they would depend largely on the bowling of Nuwan Kulasekara to give them the breakthrough Tuesday morning. "Kulasekara struggled a little bit against India 12 months ago on a couple of very flat wickets. This type of wicket probably suits him pretty well. It's not really fast and it has a little sideways movement and seam. If there is little bit of movement tomorrow morning we will be looking to him to lead the attack for us."