In that respect, the UK cricket committee has been successful in pushing the sales of tickets where Sri Lanka are involved to the extent that in some of the matches it has been virtually sold out.
``The Sri Lanka-England one-day game at Lord's on August 16 is sell-out. Tickets for Friday's and Saturday's play of Sri Lanka's one-off Test against England at the Oval starting on August 27 have also been sold out,'' said the committee chairman Asitha Jayaweera.
``We did a lot of a public relations work to make the public aware of the tour, and it is showing results. There has also been a general sense of excitement generated because the world one-day champions are playing here for the first time since winning the title,'' said Jayaweera.
``We contacted around fifty organisations in the UK in promoting the sales of tickets,'' he said. Sri Lanka last toured England in 1991.
The committee is working closely with the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in promoting the sale of tickets for the other one-day game in the triangular against South Africa due to be played at Trent Bridge on August 14.
One of the prime aims of the committee is to get closer to the English counties, an area which had not been explored in the past.
``Our aim is to make use of these counties to promote young Sri Lankan cricketers to get into the ground staff and learn from there onwards playing in the second eleven sides,'' said Jayaweera.
As part of the promotions there is a dinner-dance scheduled for August 17 to felicitate the Sri Lanka cricketers tour of the UK where the committee intends inviting the British print and electronic media.
Jayaweera heads a committee comprising a wider group of people from businessmen to cricketers and some with medical background. ``Individually we are a group of people tapped to one another,'' he said.
Jayaweera still considers school cricket as the ``cradle of cricket in Sri Lanka''. ``We still draw all our future Test cricketers from that,'' he said.
Jayaweera was an outstanding schoolboy cricketer at Royal College (he captained in 1970 and 1972) who went on to tour India as vice-captain to Mithra Wettimuny's successful schoolboy team and later went on to captain Sri Lanka Schools against Australian Schools in 1972.
He still remembers the unbeaten 59 he scored at the Sara Stadium to save his side from defeat in the third and final Test and draw the series. It was a knock that won him the 'Man of the Match' award.
Jayaweera, an all-rounder of outstanding qualities also played in one Gopalan trophy match against Tamil Nadu before coming to the UK for studies. He played cricket for Millhill CC, but studies got the better of him. He obtained a degree in Engineering and moved into local government, where he is head of British control in West London. Sri Lanka's current cricket coach Roy Dias, former manager Duleep Mendis, former captain Bandula Warnapura, Ajith de Silva, Jayantha Seneviratne are some of Jayaweera's contemporaries at school. His son Asantha, who bowls left-arm spin is vice-captain of the Middlesex county under 16 team.