Tillakaratne Dilshan has said the future of Sri Lanka's bowling lay in the hands of the fast men, and not spinners who have been their traditional strength.
"In the past 20 years or so we have depended on the spin of [Muttiah] Muralitharan for our success," Dilshan said before the team left for the UAE to meet Pakistan in a series of three Tests, five ODIs and a one-off Twenty20 International. "Murali is a bowler who can take six-eight wickets in an innings, we have still not found anyone who can do it consistently as him.
"The future for our success lies with our fast bowlers. In the spin department only Rangana Herath has proved himself a top-quality bowler. If we hope to win Test matches we will have to have the support of the other spinners as well."
Sri Lanka suffered a blow when one of their most promising young fast bowlers Shaminda Eranga was ruled out of the tour with a shoulder injury to his bowling arm. He has been replaced by allrounder Kosala Kulasekara.
Sri Lanka are taking five fast bowlers and two spinners to the UAE. Dilshan said that he was not duly worried that Sri Lanka had yet to record a win in their previous 11 Tests. "We have lost two matches and drawn nine and that is not a bad record. We lost the two Tests to very good sides England and Australia, one of them was due to a poor batting performance at Cardiff and in the other at Galle the toss played a crucial role. If you look back on the rest of our performances I am quite satisfied."
Dilshan said that he was confident his team would be able to end their win drought in UAE. "Pakistan has a mix of experienced and young talent in their line-up. It won't be easy beating them but it will be a good challenge. I think we can take on that challenge and beat them.
"We have not played Test matches in the UAE but we have watched videos of the Tests played there by Pakistan. I don't know what the conditions and the pitch will be like playing a Test series during this time of the year there."
Since taking over the reins from Kumar Sangakkara, Dilshan first had former Australia cricketer Stuart Law as interim coach for the tour to England and then former Sri Lanka fast bowler Rumesh Ratnayake playing a similar role in the recently concluded home series against Australia, before Sri Lanka Cricket eventually found a permanent successor to Trevor Bayliss who quit at the end of the 2011 World Cup in April.
"I have captained Sri Lanka with two different coaches in England and at home against Australia and now Marsh is the third. I never had an opportunity to sit down with one coach and discuss any long-term plans for the team," Dilshan told The Nation.
"Marsh is contracted for two years and he is a respected player and coach and I hope we can build on a good partnership and carry Sri Lanka cricket forward," he said.
"I have not spoken to him at length, the way I see it I think his presence will benefit a lot of youngsters and we can get a lot out of him to develop our cricket. While working together only we can find shortcomings and overcome them."
