Peter Moores runs through England's training session and gives his views on preparing to face Sri Lanka
By Rob Barnett
Peter Moores is ensuring England “don’t go too mad straight away” as they start training in Sri Lanka for seven one-day internationals versus their hosts.
Moores’ tourists yesterday arrived in Colombo and today had their first training session, which was held at a sultry Sinhalese Sports Club.
England have two warm-up games versus Sri Lanka A, the first on Friday and the second on Sunday, before the opening ODI next Wednesday.
Moores knows how to win a one-day series in Sri Lanka, having presided over England’s 3-2 victory in 2007 on his maiden overseas tour in his first stint as coach.
Now on his first trip in his second spell, Moores is taking preparations steadily.
Speaking exclusively to ecb.co.uk, he said:“It’s about getting time on your feet really. We’ve got just over a week to prepare for the first one-dayer.
“We’ve got a practice game on Friday, so everyone will be very keen to get a bat and a ball in their hand.
“Part of it now is to make sure we don’t go too mad straight away, keep calm, do our stuff, talk a little bit about the conditions and get ready to adapt to them, because we know we are going to play Sri Lanka in their own conditions. It’s tough opposition.”
The intense heat of Sri Lanka’s rainy season is not the only difference in conditions to England.
Typical of the sub-continent, the wickets are slower so the onus is on batsmen to play scoring shots rather than rely on pace on the ball.
“It’s slightly different pitches. (There’s) a tendency to have to be slightly more aggressive up front,” he added.
“The actual pitches themselves, the grass we’re stood on now is slightly thicker grass than in England. The ball doesn’t run away quite the same.
“And bowlers, similar, (it’s) very important that you can hold your line, you don’t give any width.
“There’s areas to look at to try and make sure we adapt quickly to what we’re going to come across when we come to that first ODI on Wednesday.”
.@ravibopara calls on the memories of England's last ODI series win in Sri Lanka & adds he's going to enjoy himself http://t.co/PQ1T30ZBdI
— England Cricket (@ECB_cricket) November 18, 2014