Playing in Sri Lanka is very difficult. The biggest deterrent there is the weather. That’s the most important factor for a visiting side. At this point of time, the weather there, I think, is very, very hot and humid. The humidity would be around 100 per cent. The cricketers have to be prepared to play in any condition. We have a good team and I think we should be able to win the series.In 1993, it was a very tough series for us. We knew beating the Lankans at home wouldn’t be easy. However, none of them expected things to turn out so very difficult. In those days, the umpires weren’t all that great. The ‘neutral umpires’ concept was non-existent. It made things all the more difficult for the visiting side.

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However, we enjoyed that series a lot. We had sealed it after beating them in Colombo. If I remember correctly, we won it with a substantial margin but it was a close contest and a difficult Test. We were playing against a Sri Lankan side that was very difficult to beat at home. The weather was very hot. We had lost the previous series in Sri Lanka. It was tough yet satisfying.Our batting won us the series. But at the end of the day, it’s the bowlers who win you matches. And our bowlers did the job very well. Anil (Kumble), in particular, was superb. He was the highest wicket-taker of that series, if I’m not wrong. I don’t remember the exact number of wickets he had taken then though (he had 13 wickets).Among batsmen, Navjot Singh Sidhu was very good up front. Vinod Kambli had a great series. We really batted well. That won us half the battle. When you have a lot of runs on the board, you put the opposition under pressure. That is exactly what happened. Our bowlers could bowl freely. If we had not put enough runs on the board, the bowlers would not have known whether to attack or defend. Another factor was our close-in catching. We were brilliant.Muttiah Muralitharan will be playing his last Test. I do not even remember if he played in that series (he played in two Tests). He was just coming up and he was quite talented. The rest, as they say, is history. I don’t remember the other players but I think (Sanath) Jayasuriya was just starting out then. Roshan Mahanama and Aravinda de Silva were there. It was a great series. We stayed there for 45 days. We lost the one-day series 1-2 but won the Test series.

We should come back victors this time. The batsmen have to do well, that is the trick and I’m confident they will do well. Good luck to them!

(Mohammad Azharuddin was the skipper when India lastwon a Test series in Sri Lanka back in 1993. We have lost three series — 1997, 2005 & 2008 — since that triumph.He spoke to Vijay Tagore)