He said that they want to change the result of the World Cup final and beat Sri Lanka in the Singer World Series. Manager Dr. Battersby said that the Aussies have already enjoyed the hospitality of the Sri Lankans and he was confident that the Singer World Series tournament would be a hard fought one.
Australia's new skipper wicketkeeper Ian Healy said that he was looking forward to an interesting series. Sri Lanka, as World Cup champions, will naturally go out favourites, but his team would make every endeavour to win. He said that a team may not be able to win every match, but winning tournaments and series are the most important.
Australia captain Ian Healy said that India and Zimbabwe who will be playing in the Singer World Series, cannot be overlooked, though the world champions Sri Lanka go out favourites. The new skipper Healy said that last season in Australia, 'some players from both sides went cranky' and some unpleasant things happened, but he was confident that the series about to begin will be clean and well contested.
Zimbabwe cricket captain Alistair Campbell, leading his side for the first time in a major tournament, was quite confident of a good performance in the forthcoming four Nation Singer World Series Cricket Tournament.
Campbell said: ``We have a very good side, we had a disappointing last season and we have done a lot of hard work and we've seen some new faces in the side and hopefully we can make this a good season''. He further said that Sri Lanka are the World Champions and a great one day cricketing side and the Lankans play attacking cricket and it is interesting playing against them.
Guy Whittal, the Flower brothers and Paul Strang have been playing club cricket in England and came back only two weeks before the tour and had a pretty intensive training session and it was very beneficial.They have come here well prepared. * The Mercantile 'A' Division champions, Hatton National Bank have been rewarded for their sterling performances throughout the season and have been afforded the opportunity of pitting their skills against the touring Zimbabwe Test side.
The Bankers will take on Zimbabwe in a practice match organized as a forerunner to the singer World Series Cricket Tournament. The match which will be a 50-over encounter at the P.Saravanamuttu Cricket Stadium (Colombo Oval) on Friday from 9.30 am onwards.
The Zimbabwe team, which will play Australia at the Premadasa Stadium under lights in the 'curtain raiser' of the four-nation Singer World series tournament,will be led by Alistair Campbell. The HNB team, captained by Gamini Wickremasinghe, include Sri Lanka Youth players Russel Arnold, Nilantha Bopage, Avishka Gunawardena, Suranga Wijenaike, Nilan Silva and Damien Nadarajah.