Sangakkara's recipe to beat India

Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lankan wicketkeeper, believes that a positive approach can help his side upstage India in the forthcoming seven-match one-day series, starting at Nagpur on October 25.

"Our goal I believe is to go out there and from day one to make sure that everyone means business," said Sangakkara, who has become the foremost batsman in his side. "We should go there expecting to win every game. When you go to a country like India you must have that in mind and make it work for you rather than psychologically say that it is a difficult task. You have to make it a challenge so that it works in your favour."

"Australia did it last year very convincingly. I think challenges like that are there to be taken and won. The approach of the team mentally both on and off the field should be to concentrate and focus on beating India in India."

Sangakkara, who turns 28 on October 27, believes that over the past two to three years there has been fierce competition in the South Asian region amongst Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka for supremacy and that Sri Lanka had come out ahead in most encounters.

"This tour is another test for us," he continued. "It is another challenge when you go to a country which has a very proud cricketing history and a very strong cricket team at the moment. We have been playing well in the past year. Our team has been jelling well and we've got some classic performances. It is just being more consistent on the base that we've got to get right now. We just have to make sure that we treat it as another game. Play the ball and not the individual and play to win."

Reflecting back from the time he came into the Sri Lankan side, in 2000 against South Africa at Galle, Sangakkara was happy that he could see the steady progress made by the team in the last five years. "Team wise we saw the captaincy go from Sanath [Jayasuriya] to Hashan [Tillakaratne] and now to Marvan [Atapattu]. Each team under those captains have performed in different ways, but the trend has always been improvement, to get stronger. We've had great performances and bad performances. But if you take our performances over the past five years there has been a steady climb in consistency in the win factor."

From a personal point of view Sangakkara said his game had undergone quite a lot of changes in his batting as well as his wicketkeeping. With a Test average of 48.02 from 50 Tests and a one-day average of 33.61, Sangakkara ranks among the best of contemporary wicketkeeper-batsmen. "My approach to batting is to make sure that I keep it simple," he said. "I want to know what I am doing with myself and what my batting is like when I go out there to bat. I have a lot of feedback from the coach, the players and video analysis. When I see myself batting on screen I see more things than when I am batting out in the middle. I work a lot on balance and watching the ball. There is no great secret to it, just the basics."