Pakistan feel they are fully prepared for their tour to Sri Lanka, despite not playing competitive matches in recent months, according to skipper Mohammad Hafeez and coach Dav Whatmore.
Pakistan arrived in Sri Lanka on Monday ahead of a two-T20, five-ODI, three-Test series, and Hafeez said his lads were looking forward to getting their competitive edge back against their sub-continental counterparts.
Hafeez said ahead of the seven-week tour: “We all know that Sri Lanka is always good on their own soil and we are looking forward to a very tough series.
“We have experience playing them in the recent past and had good success against them. I personally feel the boys have worked really hard in the last one and a half months.
“Although we were not playing any international cricket (recently) some of the guys were doing their own training and the PCB arranged some matches for us to get match practice.”
Pakistan coach Whatmore added: “Although Pakistan is unable to play any international matches at home due to the security concerns in their country, they managed to practice together before coming to Sri Lanka.
“We had a pretty decent two weeks camp before we came here finishing up with some practices that were attended by conservatively 15,000 people who were starved of cricket and they just loved them.
“The advantage a country like Sri Lanka has, apart from IPL of course, is they are all centralised in one spot. In our case a lot of the boys are spread out.
“There are a lot of weeks of build-up before we come together for a camp. From that point of view you can’t be in all the places at once taken in good faith that they are working and the boys have. But the two weeks was very good at the other end.”
Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was looking forward to the challenge, and said they would be using the series to prepare for the World T20 on home soil in September.
He said: “If you take their performances in the last six months they have performed well in all three formats. To play them in our conditions is a good challenge.
“One-day cricket is important to us and also the T20 because in another 3-4 months we have the World T20 so the T20 matches against Pakistan and the two we will play against India in July are extremely important to us.”
The first T20 is on Friday 1 June in Hambantota, and the final Test starts at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on 8 July.
