Ottis Gibson, the West Indies coach, has conceded that his team made mistakes that cost them a few wickets, but was confident of their position in the Test. West Indies ended the third day at 165-5, trailing Sri Lanka's first innings score by 222 runs.
"Our first priority is to avoid the follow-on," Gibson said. "Carlton Baugh is just coming back into international cricket and there's an opportunity for him to get some runs and spend some time in the middle as well. Dwayne Bravo is playing well and these two guys tomorrow will have to do a good job for us."
Gibson said Darren Bravo was disappointed with the shot that led to his dismissal for 80 shortly before the umpires came off for bad light. "He is only a young man in terms of international cricket and this is his second game. He's got to learn. At the time he got out, the light had got bad and the umpires were contemplating to go off.
"Like I said to him, this is international cricket and he's got to learn quickly. He's played fantastically well for a young guy playing only in his second Test match to play with that sort of authority. He's going to be doing well for us in the future."
West Indies dropped a crucial catch off Kumar Sangakkara early in his innings, and missed a few others as well. "Kumar got dropped on two a difficult chance. He went onto get 150. If we are going to keep developing we need to take catches like that. If we had taken those catches don't know what would have happened. But that's cricket.
"Nobody goes out with the intention of dropping catches. All the catches we dropped were difficult ones. Three of them should have been taken in international cricket."
Gibson went on to say that the West Indies side is a very young one and will continue to learn how to play Test cricket "There aren't a lot of guys who have played in Sri Lanka before and we dominated the first Test. In this Test three days have gone, and we are fighting. It's a good sign."