Sri Lanka vice captain Angelo Mathews has warned his teammates not to take the out of form Indian side lightly when their Commonwealth Bank Series campaign begins on Wednesday.
The two teams meet at the WACA Ground, with India looking to turn around a dismal tour which has seen them lose the Vodafone Test series 4-0 and split the KFC T20 internationals before being thrashed by Australia in game one of the one-day international triangular series.
While the home nation has had few problems with India throughout the summer, Mathews warned it would be foolish to expect that to continue.
He said world number four Sri Lanka, who enter the series in a tumultuous period after replacing coach Geoff Marsh with Graham Ford after their South African tour, must respect India's experience and ability.
"India are a pretty good side and we can't underestimate them at any stage," the all-rounder said.
"They can come hard at us at any time. They're a world class team and they're the current world champions so we've got to play good cricket and be on our toes at all times."
"I think we look at all the players, all 11. They are all world class and we need to keep an eye on all of them."
Sri Lanka enters the series with a poor record down under, having won just 20 of their 83 ODIs in Australia.
They are also short on match practice to adjust to the Australian conditions after their game against the Prime Minister's XI in Canberra was washed out.
But Mathews said the difference in conditions between Australia and South Africa wasn't huge and their series against the Proteas, where they lost the Tests 2-1 and ODIs 3-2, had helped them prepare.
"We've been playing pretty good cricket in South Africa, the wickets were pretty bouncy and we had to adjust in South Africa," he said.
"We did that pretty well in the latter stages there and we need to do that pretty quickly here to get the results."
The 24-year-old said the playing group had done a good job of ensuring Marsh's unceremonious axing didn't distract them ahead of the month-long series.
