``These comments were made by Sri Lanka Cricket coach Roy Dias talking to me about the matches so far played in the current tour of England.
The Sri Lanka Cricket coach admits that it will take sometime for his batsmen to get accustomed to the wicket in England where the ball turns. However he was happy that it was possible to score over 500 runs on a pitch where the ball turned against Leicestershire in the four-day encounter.
Roy Dias who spoke of the last 18 days of the tour said: Our one-day match in Hampshire could not be played owing to the rain. The Summerset game was affected by cold weather. Our batsmen failed in the Glamorgan match and were all out for 54 in the first innings but in the second innings they fought back to capture five wickets for 50 runs.
Roy Dias replying to question about the freshers in the team said that all 18 players brought have been given the opportunity to play and that the objective of bringing these new players was to give them an opportunity to acclimatize themselves with English wicket.
``All the freshers are performing well. We gave two opportunities to wicket keeper 19-year-old Prasanna Jayawardana. He did well on both occasions. But he needs guidance to improve as a batsman. Upto now Romesh Kaluvitharana had no rest. On any tour he had to play in three day, four day, Test and one day matches without break. Now he is getting the rest deserves.
``A feature of cricket in Sri Lanka is hitting the ball all the time. although this is not possible in English pitches at once it could be achieved with time.''
``Among our batsmen Arjuna, Aravinda, Hashan, Kavan, Mahela and Haturusinghe are in the runs. Sanath scored a good 36 in the Leicestershire game. But if he goes into a long innings shortly it would be very good.''
``We exercise or practise 3 to 4 hours on every day that we don't play. On the days we have matches we exercise for at least two hours and practice for at least one hour and fifteen minutes before the game.''
When asked about the bowling strength of the team Roy Dias said Muttiah Muralitharan could turn the ball on any wicket and that Haturusinghe too moves the ball well. He said that his present involvement is with Pramodaya Wickremasinghe and Suresh Perera getting them to get their swing right.