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SRI LANKA finally found something to smile about here. Their wretched trip to Australia is almost done - they have one more meaningless match in Melbourne on Sunday - but had any of the other pitches used for the Carlton and United series been like yesterday's at the Sydney Cricket Ground, they may well have been staying on for the finals.

Romesh Kaluwitharana fails to take a catch from Adam Hollioake It was as if the cricketing gods had said 'Enough is enough, have your fun, play on a pitch that will make you homesick.' The only surprise was that Adam Hollioake, who was captaining England while Alec Stewart rested, chose to bowl first on the black and grassless surface of dry, rolled mud.

Clearly, this pitch would become more difficult for batting as the game went on, clearly the spinners would enjoy themselves. Equally clearly, Hollioake did not trust a weakened bowling attack to defend a target, rather he backed his long batting line-up to chase efficiently.

Wrong. England went down with a whimper by 11 runs. Flailing bats failed time after time to make contact with Sri Lanka's crafty mix of slow bowling, and when contact was made the soft ball and a slow outfield ensured that the boundary was hard to reach. England needed brain not brawn, a Neil Fairbrother type of innings, ideally, but he was on the bench. They weren't up to it and so lost a match they reckoned to win.

It didn't much matter, they have already qualified for the best-of-three finals which begin in Sydney next Wednesday, but losing is never easy to stomach and is a habit to avoid.

After heavy morning rain reduced the match to 44 overs per side, both captains announced low-strength teams. England were without Stewart, Fairbrother, Alan Mullally and Robert Croft of the regulars - the reason for Croft not participating eluded everybody. Opportunities were given to Ben Hollioake, Ashley Giles, John Crawley with the gloves and the two largely anonymous all-rounders, Vince Wells and Mark Alleyne. None much distinguished themselves, though Alleyne bowled sensibly during Sri Lanka's manic middle-order batting collapse. It was difficult to blame them because they have played so little cricket.

Sri Lanka were without Sanath Jayasuriya, Muttiah Muralitharan and Roshan Mahanama but had Aravinda de Silva fit again. He finished off his country's innings with a magnificent strike for six off Wells, having dominated an eighth-wicket partnership of 47 with Hashan Tillekeratne. De Silva rattled along at a run a ball, giving a delightful exhibition of glides and glances that mastered the slow pitch in a way that few other batsmen could have managed.

He then took the new ball and conceded only 25 runs from nine consecutive overs of cunning off-breaks. In all, Sri Lanka bowled just six overs of seam, all of them from Chaminda Vaas, while Arjuna Ranatunga cleverly manoeuvred 36 overs out of five part-time spinners. Thilan Samaraweera, in his first match of the tour, boasted the best figures, but the impressive Upul Chandana got rid of the threatening Nick Knight and cleaned up Alleyne and Adam Hollioake when the slog was on.

Knight was relieved to reach the 50 that has eluded his otherwise consistent play this series. He needed help, though, if England were to conquer both pitch and the hyped-up opposition, but Graeme Hick missed an extravagant cut shot to his second ball, which spun like a top and kept low. Nasser Hussain was stumped and Crawley was held at the second attempt by Ranatunga.

The all-rounders looked out of their depth against the intelligent bowling and England's frustration was evident and complete when Adam Hollioake, batting ridiculously low at eight, was stumped by a mile.