The team had a new look with new captain Paul Collingwood going on his first away tour while James Anderson and Stuart Broad formed a new front line attack.

[10] Paul Collingwood, Stuart Broad, Luke Wright, Alastair Cook and Kevin Pietersen all recovered from a stomach virus to start the match.

Sri Lanka suffered two early setbacks but made a minor recovery with Chamara Kapugedera and Indika de Saram putting on 65 for the third wicket.

Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat and started well with Upul Tharanga and Sanath Jayasuriya adding 77 for the opening wicket.

After 30 overs Sri Lanka were in a strong position of 150/2 and were looking to set a large total but when Swann got Kumar Sangakkara stumped the rate slowed.

Sri Lanka could not accelerate in the final overs, losing four wickets in quick succession but still managed to finish on a good total of 269/7.

Numerous interruptions in the match meant that Sri Lanka's first innings went over the allocated time as there were problems with the sightscreens, bails falling off and even a dog running across the outfield.

Collingwood was disappointed with England's batting effort and admitted that Sri Lanka's bowling was at a level that his team wanted to achieve.

Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad disciplined bowling yielded four early wickets putting Sri Lanka on 38/4 after 14.1 overs.

As top-scorer Alastair Cook reached his fifty, with seven fours, the rest of his teammates were investigating rumoured sittings of a snake underneath the advertising board.

Sri Lanka, having won the toss and chose to bat first, were reduced to 42/5 due to some highly impressive swing bowling by Matthew Hoggard.

A 100 run partnership between Kumar Sangakkara (who top-scored with 92) and Prasanna Jayawardene (the keeper) followed to allow Sri Lanka to post a vaguely respectable score, but they were bowled out for 188.

The wicket prompted scenes of mass celebration, and an ad-hoc presentation along with the awarding of a special trophy by senior Sri Lankan officials took place at the lunch break.

However, the strength of this position quickly evaporated as Sri Lanka made a very good start to their second innings, with the openers (Sanath Jayasuriya and Michael Vandort) putting on 113.

During this opening stand, Jayasuriya became only the second batsman to score six fours off a six-ball over in Test cricket (with James Anderson being the unfortunate bowler).

At 125/5 at lunch, their quest seemed doomed, but Ian Bell and Matt Prior batted for 45 overs through the tea break and beyond to give England a chance of a draw.

Shortly afterwards, Ryan Sidebottom was dismissed to a controversial lbw decision (replays showed a big inside edge onto pad) which ended the stiffest of the resistance the lower order could offer.

Matthew Hoggard was clean bowled by a Lasith Malinga yorker a few overs later, and Sri Lanka had won the match by 88 runs.

Michael Vaughan played some exquisite shots, bringing back memories of his performances against India and Australia in 2002 when he reached the top of the world rankings.

England suffered further losses early on day 2, with Paul Collingwood shouldering arms to a straight delivery, and Stuart Broad failing as a batsman on his debut.

The bowlers made a very good start in the Sri Lankan reply, with Sidebottom removing Tharanga and then the prize wicket of Kumar Sangakkara very cheaply.

Michael Vaughan, Ian Bell and Alastair Cook all posted fifties to get up to parity with Sri Lanka and then take the lead.

The teams of ground staff had worked tirelessly on getting the stadium ready for the match, and heavy rainfall a few days before did not stop them achieving this memorable feat.

Sri Lanka made two change – swapping out the underperforming Jehan Mubarak for Tillakaratne Dilshan, a three-dimensional player who many believe should never have been dropped from the side.

England brought Matthew Hoggard back into the side, at the expense of Stuart Broad, despite an impressive debut in extremely difficult bowling conditions.

England won the toss and chose to field – a decision which looked correct as the new ball bowlers found plenty of movement of the pitch.

The biggest wicket of the day for England was that of Kumar Sangakkara, who pulled a ball out to deep square leg into the waiting hands of Monty Panesar.

England's only positive moment of the day occurring during the same over, where Ravi Bopara picked up his first test wicket when Prasanna Jayawardene edged the ball through to the keeper.

Much debate was raised through a variety of media, calling factors into question such as the length of the tour (too short for three tests), the proximity to Christmas and the longer-term argument about the volume of cricket that teams have to play.

At the end of the series, the world's top ranked test batsman and bowler were both Sri Lankan: Sangakkara and Muralitharan, respectively.