We have the ammunition to beat Australia - John Dyson

Australia is the team that everyone country wants to beat and Sri Lanka are no exception. Sri Lanka's Australian-born coach John Dyson thinks that his team have the ammunition to give Australia a good run in the one-day and Test series, if not beat them.

"If everybody plays as well as they can on the day of the big game, the Sri Lanka team has the players and the experience to beat the Australians," said Dyson, looking ahead at tomorrow's five-match one-day international series and the three Tests to follow next month.

"We have numerous world class players in the team. It's a matter of the whole team clicking as a unit on the day and everyone performing to their ability. Our guys are prepared for the way the Australians play the game," he said.

"I've said throughout the last series that England didn't try and win. The Australian team will try and win at all costs and at every opportunity. They will play far more positive cricket than the Englishmen. Going back to the Kandy Test, if we had set Australia 368 to win on that wicket with a day and a session to bat, I think they would have said `this is fairly easy'. They may or may not have got them but they would have definitely set after it."

"The Australians bat a long way down the order and that makes it extremely difficult for the bowling team. The bowlers have to keep at the job the whole time as well. So have the fieldsmen. It's just a very, very demanding game," said Dyson.

Dyson said that they had a look at the tapes of the VB one-day series between Australia and India and also the tapes of the last series between Sri Lanka and Australia five years ago.

"We just tried to compare what's happened with their side now and what happened the last time they were here. It was not all that necessary to look at the VB series hour after hour because the wickets Australia are going to encounter here will be vastly different to that they played at home," said Dyson.

"The Australians don't like playing in Sri Lanka, nor do they like playing in India and Pakistan. The wickets are so different to what they are used to in Australia that they find it difficult. They are quite open in saying `the subcontinent is the last frontier we conquered in the cricket world.' They've set that as an ambition to win in Sri Lanka, India and Pakistan. They'll be out to do that. It is our job of course to play to our ability and make it extremely difficult for them, and hopefully beat them," he said.

Dyson said that Australia would certainly be thinking of their record in Sri Lanka and wish to change that. "They are not satisfied until they've achieved their objectives of winning. It is not good enough just to play well as far as they are concerned. You only play well when you want. That's what they will set out to do during the series."

"Given that, we know its our job to counter that with a similar attitude. We should, and play to win. One of our themes during the England series was that we would play our natural game. We must continue with that theme and extend it. We shouldn't change our normal game because we are playing Australia. There's not a lot of adapting needed because we are playing on our home wickets," Dyson said.

The present hot weather conditions, according to Dyson, will definitely be advantageous to Sri Lanka. Dyson added, "Australia has just come off a long season at home and although they are match-fit they must be starting to get physically tired from the amount of cricket that they've been playing. Obviously in hot weather it is more physically draining than in cooler weather. The other factors that may weigh against Australia are the lack of pace and bounce on the pitches here."

Dyson admitted that in one-day cricket Australia have just continued winning. "Steve Waugh's departure has made no difference to that team at all. It's been a very smooth transition from his captaincy of the one-day side to Ricky Ponting's. Ricky has shown that he was groomed for the job and handles that job extremely well."

"In the Test arena we won't know until they start playing Test cricket here. This will be viewed as a difficult series because of the reasons I have already stated. It will be a good test to see just how well Ricky handles the team in the Test arena and how the team responds to him. I expect this transition too will be extremely smooth."

The series against Australia is what Dyson has been longing to win ever since he was appointed coach of the national team six months ago. "Just because I am an Australian and I've played for Australia doesn't mean that I don't want to win the series. I am here as the Sri Lankan coach and I am working with the team. I wish to win the series. It's not being disloyal to my country it's just that I am a professional cricket coach and I am employed to do a job here," he said.

Dyson is extremely happy with how the team played against England and he expects them to lift their game a level or two higher against the Australians. "I think the players reacted well during the England series to a number of pressure situations. In each of the Tests there was probably an occasion where if we had crumbled, we could have been placed in a position to lose the Test match. But each time we fought out of that situation. It was different players throughout the series who fought it out."

In the England series, the batsmen to impress were Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan and Sanath Jayauriya, while the bowling was in the reliable hands of Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas.

The one-day series against Australia commences at Dambulla tomorrow and the Test series starts at Galle on March 8.