A win is a win

There may have been the odd wobble in pursuit of a less than testing target, but England have wrapped up victory in the second Test against Sri Lanka and taken a 1-0 lead in the three-Test series. England will have been worried about chasing a large total against Muttiah Muralitharan, and the maestro with the flashing eyes did take four wickets this afternoon, but fortunately England needed only 78 to win.

After a frustrating Saturday when play started late and only one wicket fell, England did at least polish off the Sri Lanka tail swiftly for the first time this series. Liam Plunkett took three second-innings wickets to go with his three in the first innings. He still needs to work hard at his batting if he is to cement the No 8 position for England (a total of 10 runs in his five Test innings is pretty poor) but his bowling is getting better and better.

The four Englishmen to lose their wickets will be frustrated. Kevin Pietersen, after dazzling everyone with his reverse-swept six off Muralitharan on Friday, tried the same trick again without success today but was again dismissed a couple of balls later. It's one thing to try and be a fancy-dan, another to let it go to your head. At least Alastair Cook kept his cool with an unbeaten 34 to take his average over 65. Interestingly, he has the same average as Michael Vandort in a similarly brief career, but no one is yet talking about Vandort as being the bedrock of his side's batting for the next decade.