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Dyson backs his men to beat Australia

John Dyson, Sri Lanka's coach, has reasserted his pre-series belief that Sri Lanka can beat Australia if they play to their potential

Sa'adi Thawfeeq
06-Mar-2004


John Dyson: brimming with confidence © Getty Images
John Dyson, Sri Lanka's coach, has reasserted his pre-series belief that Sri Lanka can beat Australia if they play to their potential.
"That view still hasn't changed," Dyson said. "Australia are the world champions and they are a very good team. But if we play to our potential we've got every chance of beating them.
"We'll have to lift our game one notch higher than we displayed against England," Dyson continued, "because we are playing the world champions. England was nowhere near as good as the Australians. If the English played like the Australians we would have had a much harder fight. We are playing against the best in the world. So we will have to play [at] our best to do well against them."
Dyson said that the three-wicket win in the final one-day international, at Colombo, had lifted the spirits of the team, even though they lost the series 2-3. "The boys are quite buoyant," he said. "It was great to end the series with a win. We all know that the Tests are going to be much harder than [the ones] against England. Our boys showed terrific resolve under pressure. If we continue doing the same things like batting, fielding and bowling as well as we did in the Test series last year, it should be a very good series."
Dyson denied that the conditions would help the spinners dominate. "Spin will definitely play a key role, but that's not to say that world-class fast bowlers can't play a big part. In the series against England, Vaasy [Chaminda Vaas] bowled extremely well and captured most of the top wickets. Vaasy is a world class fast bowler and there is no reason why he can't do that again.
"The Australian also have world-class fast bowlers. Jason Gillespie, Brett Lee, Michael Kasprowicz and Brad Williams, they are terrific bowlers. There is no reason why they can't capture wickets."
One of the big disappointments in the one-day series was the inability of the openers, Marvan Atapattu and Sanath Jayasuriya, to provide good starts. But Dyson said that both batsmen had been working hard at their game and promised better things. "Facing big fast bowlers who are six-feet-three-inches tall and bowling consistently at 140 kilometres per hour is something that our batsmen have to get accustomed to," said Dyson. "A lot of the bowlers our batsmen play against in Sri Lanka are not as tall and fast. The fastest ball bowled by one of our bowlers, [Nuwan] Kulasekara, was 130 kmph and the normal average speed is around 120-125 kmph. That is something we have to work at.
"Marvan and Sanath are working on their game," Dyson continued. "They are tightening up [in] a couple of areas and I think we will see a revitalized opening pair in the Test series."