Heat is on for England

When England walk out at the Asgiriya Stadium in Kandy on Saturday for the first Test against Sri Lanka, one man in slightly cooler surroundings back home will have mixed feelings.

Of course, Gareth Batty would love to be at a venue where he enjoyed arguably his finest 90 minutes for his country four years ago - ironically as a lower-order batsman rather than bowling off-spin.

But then part of him will remember what he went through to help secure a draw for England - for the second match running.

That was the series, before an astonishing run of success which culminated in the 2005 Ashes triumph, in which Michael Vaughan's men hung on through two Tests in extreme heat and humidity before crumbling in Colombo to lose the series 1-0.

During the recent one-day games in Sri Lanka - all five of which were day-night affairs - England paceman Ryan Sidebottom struggled with cramp, with coach Peter Moores admitting his players would need to do plenty of physical preparation ahead of the Tests.

And Batty has warned of the challenges they face on long hot days in back-to-back matches in Kandy, Colombo and Galle.

"You get drained very quickly. I've found the sun has energised me more than sapped me everywhere round the world barring there," the Worcestershire player told BBC Sport. "It gets so humid you lose fluids very quickly.

"The wickets are completely different to England, there's not a lot going for the quick bowlers unless you can get it to swing, so the new ball is crucial, and they play spin pretty well.

"The days seem a lot longer at times, which can mentally tire you."

In the first Test of the 2003 tour, in Galle, Batty made 26 off 70 balls before master off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan bowled him 45 minutes after tea.

The game looked up but the tourists somehow clung on at 210-9, when they took the chance to come off for bad light four overs from the end.

Batty continued his heroics in Kandy by making an unbeaten 25 off 74 balls as he helped Chris Read somehow keep out Muralitharan in fading light.

"I was trying to think of ways to develop my own bowling, particularly the doosra, and so I had an idea of what Murali was looking to do," Batty explained.

"I was trying to look for signs of which way the ball was going to spin and work out how he was looking to bowl at me - whether it was to quickly fizz me out around the bat or on the crease, or bowl slowly and chip it up in the air."

With little time to recuperate between games - a scenario England will face this time - managing the body was the key for Batty.

Then 26, he was helped by the adrenaline rush any new boy in a national team experiences, but he realises how important the preparation and fitness work out on the island will be to the team's chances of success in the next three weeks.

"Duncan Fletcher didn't want us out in the sun very much on our days off, we were allowed to go swimming and that sort of thing but in general we were trying to stay indoors," Batty recalled.

"It was my first trip for England, I was on a massive high and I never really felt overly tired but a week or so after I got home I realised what I'd done.

"The heat really does take it out of you so it's difficult to get the amount of fluids you need and eat as much as you need because when it's really hot you don't always feel like eating.

"We were weighed in and out after every day and there were days when you could quite easily lose almost half a stone in fluid if you weren't careful.

"Everybody found it tough going, having to bowl long spells, but we knew there would be times when spinners would bowl a lot of overs so the quicks could slow it down a bit and take more time.

"People are so well prepared these days and know roughly how many overs they will have to bowl.

"They will have had a good break after the end of the season, getting away and not doing too much cricket but fitness will have been at the back of their minds - getting miles in their legs, doing weight programmes."

Ultimately, however, Batty believes overcoming one man rather than the elements will be the defining factor for Vaughan and co this time around.

England were on the back foot for most of that 2003 series because of Muralitharan, who took 26 wickets in the three games and will again be the kingpin of an arguably stronger bowling attack in these three Tests.

"Vaughany was just taking over as captain when we were there and it was very much a finding-our-feet series with older players who had been there and done it their way like Graham Thorpe and Nasser Hussain," Batty added.

"The young blood in there now have worked out their way of playing and at times it can be just a bit more aggressive.

"But the top and bottom for me is how Murali bowls.

"I found the survival easy but scoring the runs, being able to rotate the strike, was very difficult.

"In the first game I was quite positive and scored freely but for the rest of the series he just put men on the boundary and said 'Good luck!'"

Source: BBC Sport