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Sri Lanka not overawed by Harmison

Ahead of Sri Lanka's match against England at the Rose Bowl, Marvan Atapattu advised his batsmen: "play your natural game



Marvan Atapattu: urged Sri Lanka to play their natural game © Getty Images
Ahead of Sri Lanka's match against England at the Rose Bowl, Marvan Atapattu advised his batsmen: "play your natural game. That has been your success." Atapattu seemed relaxed and quietly confident when he spoke to the media on the eve of the England match.
Atapattu gave England their due, and when asked whether they were a team Sri Lanka feared in the Champions Trophy, he replied: "Definitely. England have been playing well, and now they are playing at home. They'll have that advantage but sometimes when you are on top, and playing at home, the expectations are too high."
Atapattu added that his team were not particularly overawed by Steve Harmison. "He's bowling well and is on top of his game at the moment. But we don't face Steve Harmison, we just face the ball that is coming from his hand. So we have to play accordingly."
The gap between Sri Lanka's performances at home and away has drawn plenty of attention, but Atapattu felt the problem was not unique to his team. "It happens to every country. Sri Lanka is no exception. Any country playing away is not as comfortable as playing at home. To call yourself a good cricketer you have to adapt to any sort of conditions and wickets. That's the beauty of cricket - you don't get to play in similar conditions every day."
Muttiah Muralitharan's absence has not hurt Sri Lanka as much as it used to a few years back, and Atapattu drew attention to this. "I'm sure any team is pleased to see a Sri Lankan team without Murali. After all, we all know what Muralitharan is capable of. But to perform this well without him has been a good team effort. Obviously when Murali is there everyone is looking to him to pick up wickets. So much pressure is put on him by everybody, including the press. But when he's not there everybody has to chip in and get the job done."
Atapattu also expressed his desire for more Sri Lankan cricketers to be called up by counties, as the experience of playing in England would hold them in good stead when they played international cricket. "It helps if players have played a bit of cricket here. It's surprising to see some of our guys not being offered or being asked to come over and play here. It would've been an honour to be asked by one of the counties, and some of the guys would definitely have considered playing here."
England (probable) 1 Marcus Trescothick, 2 Vikram Solanki, 3 Michael Vaughan (capt), 4 Andrew Strauss, 5 Andrew Flintoff, 6 Paul Collingwood, 7 Geraint Jones (wkt), 8 Ashley Giles, 9 Alex Wharf, 10 Darren Gough, 11 Steve Harmison.
Sri Lanka (possible) 1 Avishka Gunawardene, 2 Sanath Jayasuriya, 3 Marvan Atapattu (capt), 4 Saman Jayantha, 5 Kumar Sangakkara (wkt), 6 Mahela Jayawardene, 7 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 8 Upul Chandana, 9 Chaminda Vaas, 10 Farveez Maharoof, Nuwan Zoysa.