Vin­ode Mam­chan

So con­fi­dent in his troops, bowl­ing con­sul­tant Sir Curt­ly Am­brose be­lieves that once his play­ers trans­fer what they have learnt on tour so far, the West In­dies can de­feat Sri Lan­ka in the up­com­ing Test se­ries which starts to­mor­row at Galle.The leg­endary for­mer speed­ster not­ed that prepa­ra­tions have been go­ing re­al­ly well ahead of the se­ries – which will be played for the Sobers/Tis­sera tro­phy � in ho­n­our of Sir Garfield Sobers and Michael Tis­sera.

"Since we ar­rived here in Sri Lan­ka, the play­ers have ad­just­ed very well. They have been work­ing hard and are train­ing re­al­ly well in these for­eign con­di­tions," he said af­ter the team's train­ing ses­sion yes­ter­day.

"The key is to trans­fer that on­to the field and have a pos­i­tive im­pact. I'm quite con­fi­dent once we ap­ply our­selves we can do well and maybe win this Test match se­ries."

"Al­though the rain has been around and has af­fect­ed the prepa­ra­tions a bit, the con­di­tions are very hot and the play­ers would have to ad­just to that quick­ly.

"It is very, very, very hot, it is go­ing to be im­por­tant that the fast bowlers bowl short spells. The cap­tain is go­ing to have to man­age his fast bowlers, he can't give them sev­en and eight over spells here. He would have to give them three and four overs spells to that they give him 100 per cent.

"They will have to take in the flu­ids reg­u­lar­ly and the hy­dra­tion fac­tor is go­ing to be very im­por­tant."

Am­brose, whose last vis­it to Sri Lan­ka was 22 years ago added: "It will be crit­i­cal for the bowlers to make the new ball count. The pitch is not quick but there is some grass on it and this could help the fast bowlers.

"What im­pressed me was the fact that the dur­ing prac­tice to­day, when the guys saw the pitch they were prac­tic­ing on, I did not have to tell them where to put the ball, they un­der­stood and this is very im­por­tant. I think that we would be okay."

Mean­while all-rounder Car­los Brath­waite says West In­dies will need to make ad­just­ments and be dis­ci­plined in all ar­eas, in or­der to win the two-Test se­ries.

The 27-year-old said the bowl­ing de­part­ment need­ed to be con­sis­tent with their lengths while the bats­men need­ed to be pru­dent with their shot se­lec­tion, the com­bi­na­tion of which would place pres­sure on Sri Lan­ka.

"The pac­ers need to find the right lengths to bowl, whether they are us­ing it in an at­tack­ing sense or they are us­ing it as a de­fen­sive cog to al­low the spin­ners to ex­ert some pres­sure and get some wick­ets from their end," said Brath­waite, who led West In­dies A here last year.

"Bat­ting wise, we need to be a lot more se­lec­tive. What I found play­ing against Sri Lan­ka A is that the spin­ners play with their fields very well, so sim­ple things like mid-on and mid-off hang­ing–nor­mal­ly in the Caribbean we have them re­al­ly tight or back on the bound­ary – just lit­tle ad­just­ments like that, know­ing if to push and get a sin­gle or if to go over the top.

"A cou­ple of our guys were caught at a three-quar­ter mid-on."

Brath­waite is yet to play a Test but pressed the case for a call-up when he lashed an at­tack­ing 54 against Sri Lan­ka Crick­et Pres­i­dent's XI, in a drawn three-day tour match which fin­ished Sun­day.A prob­ing seam­er, he is part of a youth­ful West In­dies squad at­tempt­ing to win the first ever Test by a Caribbean side on Sri Lankan soil.

Brath­waite, who has played four One-Day In­ter­na­tion­als and two Twen­ty20s and has been in the se­lec­tion frame for some time, said the dis­ci­pline and clev­er­ness of the spin­ners would be key to any West In­dies win.

"Once we get those two things – the ad­just­ments to the field and skil­ful­ly play­ing spin, get­ting off strike, know­ing when to at­tack and know­ing when to de­fend and the bowlers get­ting their lengths right, even the spin­ners bring­ing the bats­men on the front foot a lot more and forc­ing them to make more de­ci­sions more of­ten than not – I think we will be suc­cess­ful."

The first Test will be played at the Galle In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Sta­di­um to­mor­row and the first ball is timed to be de­liv­ered at 11.50 pm T&T time,