``Prepare fifty-fifty pitches and get the players to work harder for wickets and for runs,'' said Garner summarising their fiveweek tour here.
The former West Indian fast bowling 'great', said : ``You cannot tell anybody what to prepare. You make fifty-fifty wickets and if you are prepared to put some effort in, as a bowler you get wickets, and as a batsman, you get runs''.
``You have got some useful bowlers who are fairly quick and are good prospects. More should be done to encourage fast bowlers in Sri Lanka. When you go out, you are not going to come up against the same kind of bowling you face here. Your players will have to be able to cope with the conditions in not only bowling, but in batting as well,'' said Garner.
``You have got young Vaas, Pushpakumara, Wickremasinghe and Soysa. These fellows need encouragement. Therefore, it is beneficial if you prepare fifty-fifty wickets,'' he said.
Commenting on the opposition his team received on the tour, Garner said : ``The opposition was good. Sri Lanka's strong points were the bowling and spin department. What you have got to get right is to prepare a better balance. There were some fellas who made runs as well''.
Garner said that Sri Lanka should continue to promote tours at this level.
``I don't think Sri Lanka will want to find themselves in the same situation as we were in the eighties when most of our cricketers stopped playing and we had a low break, when we couldn't replace them as quickly as we should have done,'' he said.
``It is not that our standards have fallen. What has happened is that other people have spent more time, and more or less, caught up with the West Indies,'' said Garner, a member of the invincible West Indies team that ruled world cricket for more than a decade.
``While we were a bit prepared to just sit down and watch the first team do well, all the other teams were spending money in building programs and building teams,'' said Garner, citing the reasons for West Indies' decline in world cricket.
Garner is part of the West Indies team rebuilding process for the future. He said that the West Indies Cricket Board has embarked on a four-year plan where 'A' tours will be an on-going thing.
``These tours are something that could be used as a stepping stone to Test level. The 15 players we brought to Sri Lanka are potential for the future. One of the reasons for bringing them is to blood them professionally and prepare them for Test cricket. Playing in Sri Lanka was a learning experience,'' said Garner, who professionally is the manager of a sport gymnasium in Barbados.
``We played in five or six pitches and all played differently. That in itself was part of the education to adjust to any kind of conditions. Mentally, the players are tougher. That has been the strong point of the tour,'' he said.
West Indies 'A' who came to Sri Lanka without a physio were in some ways lucky they had only one serious injury on the tour when all-rounder Laurie Williams broke his nose in the 2-day lungopener at Police Park. He recovered and went on to play in the later matches.
``Having a physio could have been helpful. But we took the necessary precautions. We didn't undertake unnecessary chances when training. Captain Roger Harper, coach Gus Logie and myself, we all had more than ten years experiecne in the senior team. What we learnt from them in terms of fitness is what we continued to do on the Sri Lankan tour,'' said Garner. West Indies 'A' also had access to the Sri Lanka 'A' team physio Lal Thamal whenever they required his serivces.
The tourists concluded a successful tour of Sri Lanka by winning the 3-match unofficial Test series 2-0 (1 drawn) and losing the 3-match unofficial one-day international series 2-1. Overall, they played nine matches, winning four, losing two, with three drawn.