“When you lose a match you can blame pitches and other things, but as professional cricketers, that’s not a good thing,” he said. “Even the other team has to play on the same pitch, and it’s our job to change the way we play. We’re representing a country and have to take that responsibility.
“We didn’t make those changes and adapt, and that was our main flaw.”
Sri Lanka had in fact had had a small training camp in North Carolina before their warm-up matches, but that turned out to be of limited assistance, according to Hasaranga.
“We have to thank the cricket board for bringing us here 10 days early and organising a training camp for us,” he said. “That was a big thing. It was important to get used to conditions, weather, and the time zone here.
“But then when we moved from one region in the USA to another, the pitches were not the same. Even though in some countries pitches are more similar from place to place, that’s not the case in the USA.
“We adjusted as well as we could, but we unfortunately got New York for the first match, and it didn’t go well for us. In the second match we went to Dallas and didn’t adjust well to that pitch. As a team and as a captain we have to take the responsibility for that.”