Ever since Sri Lanka stood up to England and gained their maiden Test win in that country in 1998, matches between these countries have been mouth watering contests. None will ever forget the incidents of 2001. There was excellent cricket played despite some horrendous umpiring decisions and some players ended up spending more time at the Match Referee's room than spent in the middle. That was the series where a record number of players were either fined or reprimanded for bringing the game to disrepute.

Key players of that series are still part of the Sri Lankan outfit while most England players who played six years ago relax in comfortable seats of the Sky commentary box.

Traditionally, Sri Lanka have opted to play the first Test in Galle, then move to Kandy before signing off in Colombo. That's part of a strategy to wear the opposition down in the Galle minefield, to go 1-0 up before moving to the hill capital. This time the first Test starts in Kandy on December 01 and later the teams will travel to Colombo before moving to Galle for the final Test, which will end just in time for the England supporters to get back home for Christmas.

This will be also Galle's first Test Match since the December 2004 tsunami that destroyed the ground.

England's inexperience will help Sri Lanka start the series as favourites, but that's exactly what we said prior to the one-day contest when the English stunned the hosts winning the series 3-2. However, there'll be one thing England will dread, the return of Muttiah Muralitharan, who was out of the one-dayers due to injury.

Despite the 2-0 defeat against the Australians, no one will expect the Sri Lankans to be a confident outfit during the series, as in the recent past they have shown an ability to make life miserable for themselves. One area they would want to rectify will be their performance in the first innings. In the last two years or so, Sri Lanka's efforts in Tests have been identical as they would be blown away in the first innings and with their backs to the wall fight back in the second innings. While Sri Lanka has drawn and won Test Matches in this fashion, that will be an area that they would want to rectify soon as it proved to be costly this time around in Australia.

Captain Mahela Jayawardene reasons out that the poor first innings performance was due to the fact that the team needed time to adjust themselves to conditions and if that's exactly the case, that shouldn't be an issue this time around as they are playing in familiar territory.

As for Jayawardene, he will be under a wee bit of pressure as after the World Cup there had been nothing much to boast about. There's never an issue or some sort of pressure for the captaincy from some corner. Sri Lanka's selectors in the past have tended to give their captains a longer lease and Jayawardene's cricket acumen will encourage them to do exactly that. But Jayawardene with a new management staff surely would want to get back to winning ways.

There'll be two more reasons for the hosts to look forward to for the first Test as two celebrated bowlers in Sri Lanka's cricket history are set to reach historic milestones.

Muttiah Muralitharan needs five more wickets to become the highest wicket taker in the world and if Sri Lanka's fielders hold onto their catches you can be assured that the record will be his. And then Chaminda Vaas will become only the third Sri Lankan to feature in 100 Test Matches.

It was felt that Sri Lanka squandered an opportunity to beat England 3-0 last time in our shores. One reason given for their 1-0 win was poor captaincy, particularly in Kandy where Sri Lanka played defensively. But they were certainly robbed of a win in Galle where England opted for time wasting tactics when their tail was in the middle. So with a captain who attacks, Sri Lanka should do better this time around.

Courtesy - The Island