ANDREW GALE wants to see his Yorkshire players put under pressure during their two-week tour of Sri Lanka, which started yesterday.

Captain Gale and his squad flew out of Gatwick to Colombo, where they will play unconfirmed opposition against both the red and white balls before returning to Headingley on March 28, just five days before their season opener against Leeds/Bradford MCCU.

“From a team point of view, the lads are ready to get outside now,”

said Gale.

“They’ve been doing a lot of netting, and they were perhaps getting to a stage where they were getting a bit stale indoors.

“They’ve worked on all the specifics they can do, and they need to be put under some pressure now.

“Over the next two weeks, there’s a good opportunity to do that. Putting them in game situations will do that.”

For all the net practice, there is no substitute for playing, said the Yorkshire skipper, who added: “I’ve seen it so many times in the indoor nets when a guy thinks he’s played a good shot and the bowler thinks he’d have been caught on the edge.

“I think Adil Rashid must have about 40 fielders when he bowls in the nets because every time you mishit it, he says ‘you’re out’.

“There will obviously be some netting out there, but to go through the emotions of playing and playing for your place in pressure game situations is something you can’t replicate inside.”

Yorkshire have been helped out with facilities and opposition by former second XI coach Paul Farbrace, who is now the head coach of Sri Lanka and at the World Twenty20 tournament in Bangladesh.

Director of cricket Martyn Moxon added: “We haven’t got the details of the opposition yet, but the first week is going to be amongst ourselves really.

“The conditions are going to be quite fierce because Colombo is very hot and humid, so we will want to ease the lads into it and build up the intensity gradually.

“The first week’s about us going at our own pace before the second week will see us playing two Twenty20 games and a two-day game against local opposition.”