IT was sad to see Sri Lanka perform so badly against England.

Two years ago I was brought in to assist them on what turned out to be their first ever Test series win here. It was amazing for me, coming out of the bombshell that was Surrey, eight weeks that I will never forget.

My role to start with was to provide information on conditions, surfaces and the players we were up against.

Marvan Atapattu was the new head coach, starting on his own journey.

I ended up being more of an adviser to him and the bowling coach, Chaminda Vaas, in terms of how they managed the players.

Malinga used to turn up to meetings with his cap the wrong way around, laid-back in his chair, looking totally disinterested.

He was the star man with the ball and things started to change once I suggested we needed to coerce him into leading by example, to pass on his knowledge to the others.

The bowlers were magnificent, bowled to the plans, and we won.

When you are the coach, you are so weighed down by the pressure of having to make the right decisions, performance, results, everything, that sometimes you can't see what is right in front of you.

Everybody is different and needs a slightly different approach. Sangakkara was a massive inrtovert, Jayawardene a massive extrovert, so you had to treat them differently to persuade them to contribute to meetings.

To watch the side now and the way they performed, albeit not with Sangakkara and Jayawardene, I know I could have given them something, even though it would have been a much harder task without those two titanic players.