With the breaking of the news of Sri Lanka Cricket and the BCCI agreeing to a five-match ODI series, the Lankan players appeared to be concerned about their skills training required for the series.

This has been reflected in a tweet by senior cricketer Kumar Sangakkara this morning.

“Our 6 weeks of pure fitness work ends abruptly. Have a week to do a months requirement of skills work before India. Planning ahead anyone?,” the former skipper asked in a tweet.

Sri Lankans are currently under an intense fitness programme conducted by the former national rugby union skipper Chandrishan Perera.

The programme was tasked at conditioning players for the busy schedule ahead leading up to next year’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

The current fitness programme was a sequel to a report filed by the SLC’s chief operations officer Carlton Bernadus, which had raised concerns about the fitness levels and the fielding standards.

Sri Lankans were to face England in a seven-match home ODI series before heading off to New Zealand for a Test and ODI series.

The sudden management decision to fill in the void due to West Indies’ pull-out from the remainder of India tour has upset the work schedule of the Sri Lankans.

Now, the gap before the England tour, which was scheduled to be preparation time for players, has suddenly been taken up by the India series, which starts from November 1st according to BCCI. - PTI