Jayawardene grounds Lankans
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Hambantota, Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka won their first World Cup match with ease against minnows Canada, but former captain Mahela Jayawardene has warned his team-mates of hard work ahead as their real test of character in the mega-event will begin when they take on Pakistan on February 26 in Colombo.
"We had a few nerves before the game against Canada started, just to get on with the World Cup in front of our own crowd. The first game in a tournament is always important and it's not easy to play a team like Canada. You've got to make sure that you come in prepared," Jayawardene, who starred in Sri Lanka's 210-run win with a 81-ball 100, said.
"It's a good start (to the tournament) and a lot of hard work ahead of us with other teams. Now we look forward to our next match against Pakistan (February 26). Pakistan have got some great individual players and we play them quite often and we know how dangerous they can be, so we have to do our homework right and prepare ourselves and go in with a very positive mindset," Jayawardene added.
Emphasising on the need to prepare evenly-balanced wickets, Jayawardene, who scored Sri Lanka's fastest World Cup century in their match against Canada on Sunday, expressed concern that not all the wickets will be as balanced as those in Sri Lanka, which is co-hosting the tournament with India and Bangladesh.
"We need to prepare good wickets which suits us, but not like big turners.
"I saw the wickets in Chennai and Bangalore. I thought they have much more spin than here. These wickets are more fair, a little bit of bounce for fast bowlers (and) movement," said Jayawardene, adding that spin-friendly pitches give an undue advantage to the teams batting first after winning the toss in normal weather conditions, as wickets deteriorate eventually that suit a spin attack in the later stage of a game.
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