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| Saturday, 6 March 2004 |
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Lanka must play to potential against the best, says Dyson by Sa'adi Thawfeeq Coach John Dyson held onto his pre-series belief that Sri Lanka can beat the Australians if they play up to their potential. "That view still hasn't changed. We can't afford not to play to our potential. Australia are the world champions and they are a very good team. But if we play to our potential we've got every chance of beating them," said Dyson looking ahead at the three-Test series which starts at the Galle International Stadium on Monday. "We'll have to lift our game one notch higher than we displayed against England because we are playing the world champions," said Dyson. "England was nowhere near as good as the Australians. If the English played like the Australians we would have had a much harder fight." "We are playing against the best in the world. So we will have to play our best to do well against them. You can't expect not to play your best against Australia," he said. Dyson said the three-wicket win in the final one-day international at the SSC had lifted the spirits of the team. Sri Lanka lost the one-day series 3-2. "The boys are quite buoyant. It was great to end the series with a win. We all know that the Tests are going to be much harder than we had against England. Our boys showed terrific resolve under pressure. If we continue doing the same things like batting, fielding and bowling as well as we did in the Test series last year, it should be a very good series," said Dyson. He said that spinners will play an important role but he didn't rule out the possibility of the fast bowlers also playing a part in the series. "Spin will definitely play a key role, but that's not to say that world class fast bowlers can't play a big part," said Dyson. "In the series against England, Vaasy (Chaminda Vaas) bowled extremely well and captured most of the top wickets. Vaasy is a world class fast bowler and there is no reason why he can't do that again." "The Australian also have world class fast bowlers. Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Michael Kasprowicz and Brad Williams, they are terrific bowlers. There is no reason why they can't capture wickets," he said. One of the big disappointments in the one-day series was the failure of openers Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya to provide good starts. But Dyson said that both batsmen had been working hard at their game and promised better things. "Facing big fast bowlers who are six feet three inches tall and bowling consistently at 140 kilometres per hour is something that our batsmen have to get accustomed to," said Dyson. "A lot of the bowlers our batsmen play against in Sri Lanka are not as tall and fast. The fastest ball bowled by one of our bowlers (Nuwan) Kulasekara was 130 kmh and the normal average speed is around 120-125 kmh. That is something we have to work at." "Marvan and Sanath are working on their game. They are tightening up a couple of areas and I think we will see a revitalized opening pair in the Test series," said Dyson. |
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