Jayawardene: 'There's nothing we can't handle'

Mahela Jayawardene believes the support staff in the tour party will help the squad understand the English conditions better © Getty Images

Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka's captain, expressed the fullest confidence that his team could overcome English conditions and England if they perform to their capabilities.

"There are no fears out there. There's nothing we can't handle. It's just how we prepare ourselves mentally and physically and what we want to do," he said on the eve of Sri Lanka's 80-day tour. "We have six or seven young guys going to England on a big tour and they will learn a lot. That will be an investment itself for the future."

Sizing up England, Jayawardene was well aware that it would be tough against a well balanced squad and clearly outlined his team's immediate tasks in tackling the opposition.

He said: "We shouldn't worry about what they will do to us. What we should worry about is how we are going to handle them and control that. We know the players and should work on their strengths and weaknesses."

Jayawardene added the biggest limitation his team had was trying to worry about things ahead of time. "For instance, in England you will start talking about the ball moving and all that jazz. We shouldn't worry about that. We haven't even gone to England yet. In England you have some of the best batting wickets, which I have batted on, Lord's for instance and Nottingham where the third test is scheduled to be played.

"It's all about how you go there and adjust and how you apply yourself. It is as simple as that. I think we did that very well in Australia and proved that we can handle pace, bounce and movement. It's all in us, how you believe in your capabilities. It's all up here."

Reflecting on his first tour to England in 1998, Jayawardene said, "My first tour of England taught me a lot. I had the opportunity to play in every game and learnt a lot in English conditions. Even though you are set when you are on 60 you can still get a good ball and get out. The first couple of matches were tough for me but luckily I had a lot of experienced guys to advice me. I learnt quickly and it helped me a lot especially to adjust myself for the next tour, which was in 2002."

Jayawardene said the English experience of Tom Moody, Sri Lanka's Australian-born coach who played and coached Worcestershire for 15 years, and Trevor Penney, the Zimbabwean-born assistant coach who played 14 seasons for Warwickshire, would prove invaluable to his team. Both coaches went ahead of the team and are in England at the moment.

He also revealed that Sri Lanka had not been practising ahead of the start of the tour. "There was no point, because the conditions are going to be totally different in England. So we used the time to give the players some rest. We have only undergone physical training to freshen ourselves after a hectic season."

Squad - Mahela Jayawardene (capt), Kumar Sangakkara (vice-capt), Upul Tharanga, Michael Vandort, Jehan Mubarak, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Thilan Samaraweera, Chamara Kapugedera, Prasanna Jayawardene, Chaminda Vaas, Nuwan Zoysa, Farveez Maharoof, Lasith Malinga, Nuwan Kulasekera, Muttiah Muralitharan, Malinga Bandara.