Sri Lanka national team head coach Mickey Arthur said that he was highly impressed with the attitude shown by the players during their first training session at the Centurion. The team had arrived in South Africa on Saturday for a two-match Test series starting on 26 December at the same venue.

“The boys were outstanding today. We had training at the moment in groups of seven – one set of guys doing fielding, one set in the gym and another set in the nets we rotated them around. I am very impressed with the quality, the standards and the attitudes the guys brought to the session. Judging by the attitude the guys had on the training ground it was phenomenal. I’ve come back from training a very happy coach,” said Arthur in a virtual media conference last evening.

Arthur said that he was looking ahead to a “cracker” of a Test series with South Africa expected to play aggressive, hard cricket.

“With my experience I do know the conditions. I finished coaching South Africa in 2010 but that was a long time ago. There is a familiarity for me walking into the ground, going into Centurion today was lovely. I kind of know the psyche in South Africa, know how they will attack us. Their head coach Mark Boucher and myself go back a helluva long way. I am really looking forward to locking horns with him. Boucher is an aggressive player and an aggressive coach. I think South Africa is going to play good, hard, aggressive cricket. It’s gonna be up to us to match it.

“With our squad we have covered all our bases. We got a very good seam bowling attack, a good spin attack and I am comfortable that our six top batters will be able to handle any conditions they get. We kind of prepared the squad as best we can for the conditions we are going to get here.

“We got two guys who can crank it up to 150kph. (Lahiru) Kumara and (Dushmantha) Chameera are very quick. Whether we play them together time will tell. (Suranga) Lakmal is the leader of our bowling attack skilled in all conditions. We got a seamer in Kasun Rajitha, he has come on beautifully, he is tall and gets bounce, Vishwa Fernando swings it as a left-armer and it is up to us to determine which combination we think is going to be the best on any given day.”

Arthur also expressed satisfaction at the arrangements made by Cricket South Africa for the upcoming series in terms of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have been very well taken care off. The bubble here is as good a bubble as you think you could possibly have. I myself and the doctor came early to make sure all the arrangements were in place. We are comfortable at the moment with the arrangements. The security around us is particularly very tight, we get tested every third day. Cricket touring is certainly very different but we are happy with the arrangements CSA has put in place at the moment.” (ST)

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