Sri Lanka coach Sanath Jayasuriya played down the hype of England’s ‘Bazball’ way of batting ahead of the first Test in Manchester.

He stated that such a style of batting is nothing new as players like Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist used to bat like this in the previous generation.

Sri Lanka will face England in a three-match Test series, beginning on August 21. The head coach, Sanath Jayasuriya, was asked about the team’s approach to fighting ‘Bazball’ in the red-ball format ahead of the first Test, and his reaction was fairly casual.

Jayasuriya stated that Bazball was not a new concept, since players such as Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist had been playing a similar style of cricket since the late 1990s. Jayasuriya did admit that England had a habit of going all out in the opening 10 overs, which the visiting team was apprehensive of.

“You get various styles depending on the time. Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist did it too during our time. This is something similar to what we have had in the past. There has just been some media publicity that this is something new. They try to play attacking cricket from the outset, but the end goal is to get to those totals of 300 or 400,” Jayasuriya said in the press conference.

“It’s in the first ten overs that there will be the most pressure I think. If you look historically, they have been attacking in the first ten overs and getting runs on the board quickly. We have got some plans to counter that. And we know this is how they will play,” he further added.

Jayasuriya highlighted that the key to bowling well was to find the right areas on the pitch.

“We have to bowl in the right places, and if they hit the good balls, that’s okay. We need to identify the right lengths given the conditions. There will be times when we need to cover the areas of the field where they are attacking, to cut down the boundaries,” Jayasuriya said.