Thorpe: We can come back Photo © CricInfo

Graham Thorpe has issued a confident call to his England team-mates that they can fight back in the series against Sri Lanka.

Referring to the series between Sri Lankan and South Africa, where the hosts completed another sweeping victory at Galle before being beaten at Kandy, Thorpe said: "South Africa lost the first Test here last year but managed to come back and win the second so there is a precedent for comebacks in Sri Lanka."

"We can come back in this series but it will be very hard. We face one of our toughest challenges for years but it's one that we can overcome," he continued.

Thorpe, writing for Channel 4's website, also defended the umpires in the Galle Test.

"The amount of incessant appealing that went on made it almost impossible for the umpires not to make a mistake," the Surrey left-hander pointed out.

But he did not criticise the Sri Lankan players for over appealing. He admitted that the English batsmen had not performed well enough, and that the behaviour of the hosts had reminded him of playing for Surrey in English domestic cricket.

"The reason we lost in Galle was because apart from two batsmen, we simply didn't play to the standard required.

"The Sri Lankans play their cricket that way and to be fair we do exactly the same thing at Surrey when Saqlain (Mushtaq) and Solly (Ian Salisbury) are bowling and we've got men around the bat."

Thorpe insisted that England had played the main Sri Lankan danger-man, Muralitharan, well and suggested there would be no change of approach in the Kandy Test.

"I actually think we played Muralitharan quite well and the fact that he has come out and said we should attack him more shows to me that we batted well against him," said Thorpe.

"He wants us to come and attack him because he believes that way he'll take more wickets. If we'd gone after him in Galle we would not have taken the match into the fifth day."

© CricInfo Ltd.