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by Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from England

BIRMINGHAM, Wednesday - England captain Nasser Hussain once again reminded his players what a formidable side Sri Lanka was even without Muttiah Muralitharan as they completed preparations for the second cricket Test beginning at Edgbaston here tomorrow.

"Everyone still has got this sort of superiority English complex that 'we are England, they are Sri Lanka so we are gonna beat them'. This is a bloody good side we are playing against and unless we are at our best as we showed at Lord's, we will come unstuck whether Muralitharan plays or not," said Hussain at a pre-Test press conference.

"I should just remind the players just to do the basics right and to think on our feet a little. I don't think we thought on our feet. Sometimes performing below par brings you all together. That was the good thing about Lord's," he said.

England were not certain whether Sri Lanka would throw in Muralitharan into the second Test and Hussain said: "I am sure a lot of our boys haven't faced a lot of spin yet this season. I know I haven't. On the Sri Lankan tour we were all brought up on spin. It will be again reinforcing the mental sort of preparations you need if Muralitharan or any other spinners play. Just because we played him once doesn't mean that we have sorted out Muralitharan.

"If he plays, the batsmen will have to play according to their own game plan. He will be one of the eleven players we have done our history of and done our studies on and, we will play him as we see him. He's a world class player, there's no doubt. Probably one of the best off-spinners ever to play in the game," he said. Hussain believed his side could bowl Sri Lanka out at Edgbaston if his bowlers could move the ball side ways. He said it was not something his bowlers couldn't do. "They have all performed well for England in the last few years," he said.

Hussain said the Edgbaston had produced some remarkable Test matches over the last few years and was a result-oriented pitch.

"Edgbaston is a peculiar ground. If you put the ball in the right areas you've always got the chance of getting a broken finger, like in my case, or getting out. But if you put the ball in the wrong areas as at Lord's last week, it's a very quick scoring ground and usually has pace on the ball as well and, it goes for four. We like playing in Birmingham because there is always something happening. It's never dull here," said Hussain.

England has every reason to be happy about playing at Edgbaston because it is their most successful Test venue. Of the 37 Tests played there since 1902, England have won 18 (48.65%), drawn 12 and lost only seven including the last two against West Indies in 2000 and Australia in 2001.

The ground is celebrating its 100 years of Test cricket this week, but this is the first time Sri Lanka is playing here. Sri Lanka's previous five Tests in England have either been played at Lord's or at the Oval. Hussain didn't rule out the possibility that what happened at Lord's will happen again here.

"No one plays well all the time. We didn't play well, the first three days at Lord's and Sri Lanka did. It was not the end of the world. We put it right. It could happen again, but we've got to keep those to a minimum," he said.

Hussain said England included rookie pace bowler Simon Jones 'because we needed something different in our attack'. "On a flat wicket both sides struggled to get 20 wickets. The bowling on both sides needs to improve. Whether Simon plays here or not will be dictated by the conditions," said Hussain. England may even prefer to play Alex Tudor if Dominic Cork does not come through his groin injury. Hussain considers him potentially as one of the best cricketers in England who can perform in all forms of the game.

"If he has sorted out his fitness problems he has got a good chance of playing here," said Hussain.

With bad weather hindering pitch preparations and forcing it to be kept under covers most of the time, it is very likely that England will stick to their four-man seam attack to try and unsettle the Sri Lanka batting. 

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