GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene is contending that playing the West Indies on their home turf is no ordinary challenge. The right handed batsman made the remarks at the Digicel Test Series launch press conference in Georgetown.
“It’s a great challenge for us, we haven’t toured West Indies that often, this is my second trip here on a full tour, this is a great opportunity to get that first series victory,” Jayawardene said.

And he is confident that he has the manpower to get the job done.

“We have a very good side, experienced guys as well as some new youngsters coming through the set up, exciting times for us, we’ve always enjoyed the Caribbean, the last outing (Cricket World Cup in 2007) was brilliant, we went all the way so I’m quite pleased with the preparations and looking forward to the series,” the 30 year old said.

The captain, who is also the record holder for most Test runs by a Sri Lankan, is also taking heart from the fantastic recent Test record particularly in away matches.

“As a team we’ve been playing really good Test cricket, our Test record speaks for itself, we’ve been competing really well away from home which has been an issue for a number of years for us, we’ve been dominating at home but away from home we’ve started winning matches and we’ve been pretty consistent, we’re just going to go with what we do best and concentrate on that,” said Jayawardene even though his side has never won a Test match in the Caribbean in four previous attempts.

He said that mental preparation was key for his team and he is thankful that he has two world class bowlers (world record holder Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas) who are capable of dismissing any opposition.

“We’ve put a little more pressure on the opposition on their home soil and created opportunities, we have an attack which can penetrate any conditions which is a good thing, that has helped a lot because you have to take 20 wickets to win a Test match,” Jayawardene observed.
He is also happy with his team’s preparations particularly with his team’s performance in the three day warm up game against the Guyana Cricket Board President’s Select XI at the Guyana National Stadium.

“It was good preparation for us to play next to the Test wicket which helped us to get familiarized with the conditions, we wanted to make sure we did what we wanted to do in the Test series which could help us win the series, overall everything was very good, guys spent a lot of time out there in the middle familiarising to the conditions, the bowlers had a good run as well, the batsmen had an extended run,” Jayawardene said.
The First Digicel Test Match gets underway on Saturday, March 22nd at the Guyana National Stadium at Providence.
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