It says: ``The future of cricket this way''. You can hear the Hon Tim Lamb and David Lloyd and David Graveney and goodness knows how many old farts from the England and Wales Cricket Board protesting from the front of the bus that the road goes straight on. ``What turning? Where?'' They've seen the sign to Oblivion and you can't miss that. ``Carry on driver.''

Let's forget for a moment the fact that England lost at home for the first time to an emerging island who have to be grateful for one measly Test match at the back end of the summer. Let's forget Hick and Crawley's meaningless hundreds and Ben Hollioake's pale imitation of an all-rounder. They are not the point. Sri Lanka, a predominantly Buddhist nation where Zen is widely studied, came as close as anyone since Ian Botham at Headingley to raising cricket above the parapet of global indifference.

That's a bit like getting brass-rubbing into the national headlines. Nobody apart form Richie Benaud, Henry Blofeld and the bloke in the egg and bacon tie who's just dozed off gives a stuff about Test cricket. It is as irrelevant to schoolkids today as the Lone Ranger and Tonto.

Michael Atherton's stoical 98 in the teeth of a South African gale at Trent Bridge thrilled and inspired us so-called purists. We smiled knowingly at each other with the words: ``This is what Test cricket's all about.''

I'm sorry, but it isn't. Not unless you want Test arenas to be as sparsely populated as Old Trafford was in July. For heaven's sake, we'll soon be persuading ourselves that cricket is still the English and Welsh national summer sport. Go to a county ground on Monday (or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and count the number of teenagers in the audience. Check the fixture list at the average state comprehensive.

Jayasuriya and the boys lit a beacon. To hell with convention; burn the text books. This is a world dominated by fast-food, quick fixes and penalty shoot-outs. If you can wallop a six over point in a one-day game, why can't you do it in a Test match? If you can bludgeon 19 off Angus Fraser's first over, why wait until his 21st?

Bradman, Miller, Dexter, Sobers, Viv Richards and Botham tried to warn us: ``It's no good standing there waiting for things to happen. You have to make something happen.'' However, the message takes a long time to sink in. Some of us still believe that England needs batsmen who can build ground-emptying centuries over a day and a half. Why, when you can change the course of a match in half an hour? Philo Wallace did it for the West Indies last summer. Jayasuriya apparently does it any time he chooses and de Silva, Ranatunga, Tillekeratne and Kaluwitharana to name only a couple of dozen!

The wonderful thing is that as well as turning one-day cricket on its head by demolishing the bowling in the first 15 overs and then consolidating, Sri Lanka carried the one-day philosophy into the cathedral of Test cricket and re-invented the game - only just in time, though, and only if our minds accept what our eyes have witnessed which, alas, I seriously doubt.

Radio and television commentators were quite rightly orgasmic in praise of the Sri Lankans. The word ``entertainment'' escaped from the mouth of Geoff Boycott, to whom the concept of spectators enjoying themselves is, or certainly was, alien.

That other great stonewaller, Trevor Bailey - he of the exaggerated forward defensive ``smother'' upon which many of us cravenly based our early batsmanship - was the first to realise that Ranatunga had put England into bat because he didn't want Muralitharan bowling 114 overs without a break. An astounding piece of arrogance to assume that England would only have to follow-on if Sri Lanka batted first - and razor-sharp observation by Trevor.

A component of arrogance is fearlessness, which is a cousin of positive thinking and flows out of every Sri Lankan pore. This is where they have the advantage over us. Since you cannot unlearn fear and embrace positive thinking overnight, we must either snatch our future cricketers from the cradle and show them how to hit everything from a bad ball to a half-decent one to the boundary with an open blade - or send the entire team (with the exception of Alec Stewart) for deep hypnosis.

Of course, Sri Lanka won't always win. That they have achieved what they have with 10 batsmen and one bowler is almost beyond belief until you watch the way they do it. It is the only way forward and there is no time to lose.

Tony Francis is an ITV sports presenter