Jayawardene warns Sri Lanka against complacency

Sri Lanka's vice-captain Mahela Jayawardene has warned his team they must not become too complacent against what is virtually a second-string West Indies team when they confront them in the first Test at the Sinhalese Sports Club on Tuesday, which will be Sri Lanka's 150th Test.

Sri Lanka dealt a psychological blow to the tourists when they shot them out for a paltry 110 runs in the two-day warm-up match played at the Nondescript grounds over the weekend and then replied with 382. All of their top order batsmen - with the exception of Jayawardene - made a decent score. The captain Marvan Atapattu made 77, Kumar Sangakkara 109 and Tilan Samaraweera 95 while left-arm bowler Rangana Herath captured three wickets for 23 runs in 15 tight overs.

"It was a good game for us to get back into the groove. We haven't played any cricket together for two-and-a-half months," said Jayawardene who was dismissed for a duck. "We are getting Murali back after some time. Vaas is in good form and Malinga is bowling really well. We have the firepower but we have to be more focused and give 110 percent and not be complacent. We have to do the job once we get there."

Jayawardene said that the team were disappointed that West Indies are not at full strength for the Test series. "They have some really good cricketers and it would have been a brilliant series like the last occasion. But then again we have no control over such situations. It is out of our hands. We are playing the West Indies - that's all we have to think of. We shouldn't be thinking of whom the players are we are playing against. It's another Test match for us. We are ready to go all out. It's good to start playing cricket again for all of us."

He said the long break had done the team a world of good enabling players who have been nursing injuries to recover and make the others hungry for success. "We had a complete rest and did not think about the game for about three or four weeks. We had a good rest as a team and we are very eager to start playing cricket again. I think it is the right time for us to make a start. All the guys are in good nick, hopefully we can get it going. It's all about how quickly we can get into the groove of Test cricket and how quickly we could jell together as a team again. There is a lot of cricket ahead of us so if we could get together quickly it will be great.

"The other important things is we did pre-season training laying a lot of emphasis on fitness," he continued. "It's always good to have a long break because you can focus on your fitness training, which is very important. It helps you to stay fit and not have injuries during the season. We went through a very hard fitness regime for about five weeks and hopefully it will help us to play another 12-18 months of cricket which is ahead of us."

Sri Lanka will begin the series against West Indies under their new coach Tom Moody, their fourth in the past decade after Dav Whatmore, Bruce Yardley and John Dyson. "The good thing about our team is that we have always improved with every coach who has been with us in the past five or six years," he added. "They always bring something to the team. With Moody also I hope we can do the same. We only had Moody for a couple of weeks but the team has reacted to him very well. He's a very nice guy, easy to communicate. The young guys especially have enjoyed him being around which is a good thing. He is a coach who lets you do your own thing and monitors us. Whenever he feels that he want to come in and have a buzz, he will do that."

Jayawardene said that everybody was looking forward to playing under Moody as a team. "We had a fair amount of discussions with him. Last week we had a camp for about five days where we got a sports psychologist coming and talking to us about team values and things like that. There were a few new things that also came up. I think we'll have to wait and see how things go. It is still early stages."