Thorpe gears up for 'biggest challenge since Warne'

England's batting hero from Pakistan, Graham Thorpe, is preparing himself for his "biggest challenge" since facing Shane Warne.

The Surrey left-hander, whose unbeaten 64 guided England to victory in the decisive Test in Pakistan at the end of last year, is now gearing himself up to tackling Muttiah Muralitharan in the First Test against Sri Lanka providing the master of spin can shrug off a groin injury.

In Pakistan, Thorpe devised a game plan to counter the wiles of Saqlain Mushtaq and he is hoping to formulate a similar strategy against Muralitharan, who has 303 Test wickets to his name.

"Muralitharan is one of the best of all time and has a great record, but as a cricketer I have always wanted to test myself against the top players, which is why I'm looking forward to the challenge of the next few weeks," wrote Thorpe in his column for the cricket4.com website.

"Facing Muttiah Muralitharan on his own turf will be the biggest challenge I've faced since playing against Shane Warne at his very best.

"Most of us have never played against Muralitharan in his own country and we are stepping into the unknown. Sri Lanka do not have a great record overseas but at home they are a completely different team and Muralitharan comes into his own.

"I'm optimistic we can cope with him and if we are to have any chance of being successful out here then we have to stop him having brilliant days like he did at The Oval two years ago [when he took 16 wickets in a Sri Lankan victory]."

Thorpe continued: "I had a good record in Pakistan and felt I progressed as an international batsman against top quality spin, but while defeating Saqlain Mushtaq was an achievement to be proud of, this will be even bigger if we can do it," he claimed.

"What I plan to do is exactly what I did in Pakistan. I will meticulously work out where I can score my runs. That may mean I cannot play any big shots and I'll have to be content to hit the ball where I can.

"There is a lot of risk involved in playing big shots against the turning ball and the guys and myself will have to work out individually what our most effective method of scoring is.

"For the right-handers I'm sure they'll be using the sweep all the time but for me as a left-hander, with the ball turning away from the bat, that will be very risky and hard to control.

"I will have to look at how he has set his field and try to play him accordingly, sometimes as late as possible, which is the tactic I employed against Saqlain.

"In Pakistan this didn't come to me straight away and it took me a while to work out where I was going to score runs."