Sri Lankans will carry on appealing, says wicket-keeper Sangakkara

Sri Lanka are unlikely to curtail their enthusiastic appealing in the Second Test at Kandy.

After the opening clash of the series against England at Galle, four Sri Lankan players were fined 25% of their match fee for excessive appealing.

But one of those players, wicket-keeper Kumar Sangakkara, says things are unlikely to be any different in Kandy and says it will be up to the officials to decide the issue.

He said: "We should be calling it as we see it and the match referee is there to make sure we don't overstep the mark.

"When we are in the middle we appeal when we think someone is out and we don't notice if we are going too far - it's the commentators and the people who are watching who notice it more.

"If eight balls hit the pad you might go up for all eight and sometimes when you are in the middle you don't know how things look."

Sangakkara, a law student at Colombo University, believes the unique conditions in Sri Lanka make umpiring especially difficult, particularly when prolific off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan is bowling.

"It's going to be hard on wickets like these because the ball is hitting the pad on eight balls out of ten, edges fly and the ball jumps up a lot," he said.

"It's a bit confusing to separate each ball. We don't have time to examine every one and if we think there is a chance of a wicket we will appeal.

"On the sub-continent the ball spins a lot and this sort of thing is likely to happen a lot."

Sri Lanka will be aiming to clinch the series by winning at the Asgiriya Stadium in the Test which starts tomorrow.