1st Test Match Sri Lanka vs. Australia

Big Picture

And so, the real challenge begins. Sri Lanka have won the Twenty20s and Australia took the ODI series, but those results will be quickly forgotten when this three-Test battle begins. In the one-day format, it was a meeting of the top two teams in the world, according to the ICC's rankings, but in the Tests it is No. 4 v No. 5, and neither team is content to sit in the middle of the pack. There are major personnel changes in both camps from the short format to the five-day game, and yet some lessons learnt over the past couple of weeks could have significance in the Tests.

Importantly, the Australians have now had a good look at Ajantha Mendis , whose mysteries they slowly began to understand over the course of the series. By the end of the ODIs, Australia's batsmen had worked out ways to cope with him, even if not all were reading his variations. However, handling Mendis over five days is a different proposition, especially on a pitch expected to turn from the first day. Watching the ball out of his hand and carefully trying to detect his subtle changes, over and over again, for every delivery in a long spell, requires supreme concentration. The Australians will find it draining. Even under normal circumstances, they can struggle against quality spin, and there will be times over the course of this match when they'll face tweakers from both ends with men around the bat. Michael Clarke doesn't mind using his feet, but how his colleagues handle the pressure will be key to Australia's chances.

The one-day series also revealed a significant difference in the captaincy of the two sides. Clarke has been Australia's full-time leader for less than six months, but already he has shown himself to be an intuitive, adventurous and aggressive captain, and it's impossible to quantify what effect that will have on Australia's performance over the coming months. By comparison, Tilakaratne Dilshan was at times slow to react to the changing game, and seemed to lack the natural leadership of Clarke. Dilshan is also relatively new to the role and if he leads from the front with a pile of runs, he'll have done his job, but it's hard to avoid the feeling that Sri Lankan would have been a more formidable foe under Kumar Sangakkara.

But the cold, hard facts are that both teams have struggled in Test cricket over the past couple of years. Back in 2008, Australia started the year as the top-ranked Test team in the world, on 141 points, while Sri Lanka were third on 109. Not much has changed for Sri Lanka, who are now fourth on 108. But Australia have plummeted to fifth, on 100 points.

Sri Lanka have won only one of their past 12 Tests, while Australia have won one of their past eight, and this is their first Test series since the disastrous Ashes campaign at home that led to the Argus review. Given that the Australians haven't played a Test in Sri Lanka in seven years, the hosts, with their spin-heavy attack on dry pitches, deserve to go into the series as slight favourites.