"The major change that I see in this Pakistan side is that Saeed Ajmal is not there," Atapattu said. "He has been their main weapon and it's somewhat unfortunate that things have fallen that way. Teams have to face such situations.

"It's a psychological thing when you know that Ajmal at his peak made not only the Sri Lankans but a lot of batsmen think," he said. "He gave a lot of them sleepless nights. Now that he is not there it's a psychological advantage to us but still you've got to respect the good ball and put away the bad ones. That's the mentality I expect our players to be in.

Atapattu was, however, upbeat about Sri Lanka's bowling, especially with the "coming of age" of their fast-bowling unit.

"Our fast bowlers are more disciplined than a decade ago if you exclude Chaminda Vaas who was in a different class," he said. "We are trying to bring in more discipline to our fast bowling unit and hopefully we will see results.