No Farbrace ‘inside information’ concerns for Mathews

Angelo Mathews, the Sri Lanka captain, has said Paul Farbrace’s decision to defect and join England was understandable and denied that their former coach would be able to provide inside information during the forthcoming series between the sides.

Fabrace’s departure last month to become Peter Moores’ No2 with England caused controversy, with Sri Lanka initially reluctant to release the former Kent and Middlesex wicketkeeper from the remaining 18 months of his contract.

The coach eventually left and now finds himself in the position of preparing England to face Sri Lanka for their first series under new management, with one-day, Twenty20 and Test matches beginning with a T20 at The Oval on 20 May.

Mathews and the new head coach, Marvan Atapattu, will begin preparations with a one-dayer against Essex at Chelmsford on Tuesday. The captain admitted that some were disappointed at the departure of Farbrace, who they said excelled at man-management and was able to instil confidence within the team. However, both are confident that Sri Lanka can prevail against England in all formats if they can adapt to the local conditions.

“Everyone has his own choices and we can’t really say no or yes to someone’s decision; we respect it,” said Mathews of Farbrace. “He has made his choice and we wish him all the very best.

“He got everyone together and, with the help of all the support staff, he was doing his job very well. He was giving a lot of confidence to each player and his man-management was pretty good. But when it comes to an international cricket team, there are no secrets. You have so many videos of all the players, of the support staff as well. There are no secrets. Everyone knows a little bit about the opposition, so I don’t really think he has all the inside information.”

Asked if some in Sri Lanka were disappointed to see Farbrace leave, Mathews said: “Some people were, but it is one of those things which we have to take and move on. We have a coach who can take over immediately, and he did. The team has done pretty well in recent past, so there is nothing for us to worry about.”

Atapattu added: “When he was with us, not once, twice, it worked very well. He coped with the system really well, he fitted in easily with the players and the support staff.”

Sri Lanka arrive in England as World Twenty20 champions after an impressive tournament victory in Bangladesh; and last week they beat Ireland by 79 runs in an ODI in Dublin.

They have enlisted the help of Chris Adams, the former Sussex captain, as a “consultant” during their tour and they believe he will provide useful information on the English players and conditions. Adams linked up with the squad in Essex on Monday.

Mathews expects England to be dangerous opponents after their miserable winter in Australia, despite the absence of Graeme Swann, Kevin Pietersen and Jonathan Trott, and denied that Sri Lanka would be complacent.

“A successful tour for me would be winning the one-day games, the T20s and the Tests,” said Mathews. “We will give it our best shot. We have started training a bit earlier than usual because we know the English conditions are not going to be easy for us.

“England are going to come hard at us, and have played some good cricket in the recent past, even though they have not played well [against Australia]. We are expecting a hard challenge from them. Especially after losing the Ashes they will be hurting, so it will be a good challenge.”

England were the only side to beat Sri Lanka at the World Twenty20, before crashing out and losing to the Netherlands, and Mathews is wary of the quality at Moores’ disposal. He said: “We had a good couple of months in Bangladesh, winning the Asia Cup and then the T20 World Cup, so it was a great triumph by the team. We had some great celebrations back at home. Being the world champions now is history.We have to move on.

“They [England] are a very hard team to beat and you know what happened in Bangladesh, they beat us quite easily in the sub-continent conditions, so you cannot be complacent and just have to go hard at them.” – The Guardian