It was not only because most of the formidable sides in the world struggle in the island nation, but also the Australian has had first-hand experience about the difficult conditions as he toured with Bangladesh A team last March.

"It's a tough task to play against Sri Lanka in their den as the condition is not only hard but the pitches are quite bouncy which is altogether different from the other subcontinent countries. We are going to face one of the best teams around, so we would be needing a decent effort and an all-out effort as well," said Williams, who joined the Tigers' training camp at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium yesterday.

"There will be nothing better if we got some outcome from the tour in the end," he added.

Although the 35-year-old Australian holds the post of national game development manager, he coached Bangladesh A and under-19 teams for the last two years and was recently handed the job of national team's head coach following the departure of Dav Whatmore.

The short-term Tigers' coach looked hardly concerned about the result in the series rather wanted the best efforts from his newly acquired charges during the three-match Test and one-day series.

"In international sport, everybody is looking for a win. But we should understand what kind of opposition we are up against. What we can do is to perform at our best, to take a step forward at the highest level of the game," he said of his target.

The 35-year-old however has no special plans with the national side, rather kept his modus operandi -- what he followed during his job with the A team and the age level teams.

"I always try to give the guys a simple message which is to 'learn from mistakes' and there is no exception this time. I don't like to deal too much with the wrong things, I am more inclined towards the positive things and with what we are capable of doing. But one should ask questions about their performance if improvement is needed," he said.

Williams was also little bothered with the tag of 'interim coach' as he believes that his main duty is to deliver to the board as much as he can, in any capacity.

"Coaching is nothing new to me. Yes, my job has changed as I am appointed (as the) interim coach for the national side, but the players are same as I worked with most of the them at different levels like A team and under-19 team. Actually my job remains the same which is to support Bangladesh cricket," he explained.

He believes that it is always helpful for a team like Bangladesh to play in such difficult conditions.

"We should understand that it will be a tough, long tour. I think we are in a learning process and the more we play matches in such conditions, the more we will be benefited," he observed.

He was a little concerned about Bangladesh's poor showing in the longer-version of the game as he thought that the country is still new in that fray.

"It is not too long that Bangladesh has been playing at this level and in terms of the number of games, it is also not many. There is a very good sign in their one-day performance and I think playing Super Eights in the World Cup was a great achievement.

But we need time in Test cricket," he explained.

On the other hand captain Mohammad Ashraful was looking forward to making a bright debut in Sri Lanka like his Test debut in the same country in 2001 with a blazing hundred.

"That was a special knock. The world knows me because of that century. So I am delighted to get the opportunity to start my captaincy career in Sri Lanka. I am optimistic about putting up a good show there," said the ace batsman, who also joined the camp yesterday after playing in the Afro-Asia Tenty-20 International.

The right-hander also assured that he does not feel any extra pressure because of the added burden of captaincy.

"I do not feel any pressure because of the captaincy. It is going to be just another tour for me. We will start the tour with the Test series and I think that will helpful as we finished with Tests against India," he said.

Despite the fact that he is going to face a tough challenge in his first appearance as captain, the new skipper said that they were not focusing on the opponents.

"Sri Lanka is a very strong side with a high-quality batting line-up and good variation in bowling attack. Undoubtedly it is going to be a tough tour. But we are confident of doing well there. We are not focusing on Sri Lanka's strong points, rather our aim is to improve our individual performances," said Ashraful, who guaranteed that the captaincy will not hamper his natural batting.