Captain calm shines on serenely

Think of Sri Lankan captains, and you immediately think of Arjuna Ranatunga, the pint-sized Napoleon who grabbed a mild-mannered side by the scruff of the neck, used confrontation as a default setting in adversity, and shook the game so vigorously that when Sri Lanka emerged from the 1996 World Cup as champions, their place at the game's top table had finally been enshrined as a right.

Mahela Jayawardene, by contrast, could hardly be further removed from Ranatunga's model. For starters, he has never actively sought the burden of leadership, and he only took over for the current tour of England when Marvan Atapattu was forced to withdraw through injury. His critics have long questioned his aptitude for such a high-profile role, believing his run-scoring would be compromised by responsibility, but after the events of the past week at Lord's, the doubters have been deprived of their ammo.

Even before his side had stymied England on the final day of the game, Jayawardene had guaranteed himself a special niche in cricket history. His brilliantly composed 119 in the second innings made him only the ninth overseas batsman to score twin hundreds at Lord's, an exclusive club that counts Don Bradman, George Headley, Garry Sobers and Dileep Vengsarkar among its more illustrious members.

But when his tailenders completed the task he had begun, batting out the final day to complete a Test-record tally of seven half-centuries in a single innings, Jayawardene's calming influence had been paraded in front of the world. And given the disarray into which the Sri Lankan camp had been cast on the eve of this Test, it's questionable whether anyone else could have imbued such a sense of serenity.

Ranatunga certainly wouldn't. When news emerged from Colombo that Sanath Jayasuriya had been reinstated in the squad without the blessing of the tour management, Ranatunga responded that he would have flown home in disgust. Jayawardene simply got on with his job, and his young charges, seven of whom had never before played in England, responded eagerly to his lead. An absence of agenda proved to be his trump card.

He says
"It ranks as one of the greatest Tests I have ever been involved in. The whole team deserves the man of the match [award]. It was a brilliant effort which showed a lot of character from top to bottom. It will have given a lot of confidence to the youngsters, and that's what they need, belief that they can do it at this level of cricket, because most of them haven't achieved anything in their careers yet."

They say
"Test cricket provided its own proof yesterday that the world has reached its tipping point, the stage at which global warming causes it to behave in an increasingly haphazard fashion. Ice sheets are melting, deforestation is causing a Japanese chopstick crisis but none of this remotely compares with the extraordinary manner in which Sri Lanka saved the Lord's Test." The Guardian's resident Lanka-phile, David Hopps, rubs his eyes in amazement.

What you may not know
Jayawardene's cricket career was almost derailed before he had left school, when his younger brother, Dhishal, died of a brain tumour at the tender age of 16. After six months in mourning, Mahela resumed the game, and has since become a leading campaigner for the Sri Lankan cancer charity, HOPE. With the support of his team-mates, he aims to build a new 750-bed unit at Maharagama, the country's only dedicated Cancer Hospital.

What the future holds
At the age of 28, and with 79 Tests and 5690 runs to his name already, he is well on course to overhaul Jayasuriya's record as Sri Lanka's leading run-scorer, and could eventually replace Muttiah Muralitharan as the country's most-capped player as well. For the time being, however, he has no more pressing thoughts than the second Test at Edgbaston next week, where a buoyant squad will seek to build on the confidence gained at Lord's ... and maybe even find a place in the starting line-up for that man, Jayasuriya.