Skipper Kusal Janith Perera said that the Sri Lanka Team is confident of providing a good challenge to England during their limited overs series starting on June 23.

He made these comments yesterday, shortly before departing to England for a series, which includes three Twenty20 Internationals and the same number of One Day Internationals.

“We all know that England are a top ranked team packed with more experienced players and we must never underestimate them. But we want to give them a good challenge,” he said.

“Our team includes some good youngsters with a lot of domestic experience and they will like to test their skills on this tour,” he emphasised.

“This will be a good experience for all of them and I hope they will get the maximum exposure from this tour.”

“We had a lot of positives from the Bangladesh ODI series and I hope that experience will be of great use when competing against the England team.”

“We had a good training session after the Bangladesh tour and the players had worked hard to develop their physical fitness,” he explained.

“We will have a pre-match training period before the T20I series and that’s good for us to acclimatise to the English conditions,” he commented.

“We want to really focus on this series and play for the country and I hope all players will come up with their best effort during the tour,” he added.

Meanwhile, uncapped Charith Asalanka said that he wants to take the maximum opportunity from this tour and develop his skill level to gain valuable experience. “I think my performances at domestic level have paved the way for me to get selected to the national team and now it is my responsibility to produce the best effort.”

“I have enough experience playing in the Lanka Premier League and in the Abu Dhabi T10 League and on both occasions I had a chance to perform well,” said Dhananjaya Lakshan.

“This is the first time that I have got the chance to play for the national side and I have a big responsibility to play well for the country.”

“Personally, I had to work hard to make it to the national team and my performances at domestic level have helped me to achieve my goal,” said Ishan Jayaratne.