Sri Lanka coach Dav Whatmore was delighted after his side recorded their first ever Test whitewash, when they wrapped up a 3-0 series win over the demoralised West Indies on Monday. "As a coach it's very difficult to reach perfection," Whatmore said, "but I've got to say at this moment in time it's a very happy time for me. It's tremendous.

"Sri Lanka have never done this ever in the history of their cricket. It's only 20 years since we've been playing Test cricket. It's very hard to win all your matches in a series so it was a great effort."

But for West Indian captain Carl Hooper it was a case of back to square one, after his team had failed to compete with Sri Lanka. "The one area where we were really lacking was that we were not as penetrative as we needed to be in the bowling department. I was concerned by the way Sri Lanka put up huge totals against us pretty comfortably."

He praised star batsman Brian Lara, who averaged over 114 in the series, with three hundreds, scoring over 350 more runs than any other West Indian batsman. "It was good to see Brian scoring heavily and Ramnaresh Sarwan looked good, but we needed other batsmen to chip in more regularly with three-figure scores."

Lara credited Sir Garfield Sobers with helping him regain his form in the series. "You need to get your hands coming from behind the ball and try and stop chopping across the line," Lara said. "This is what Sir Garfield told me. I worked on that a lot and I think it has played a very big part in my batting.

"It has also added to my discipline. Knowing that my technique is improving, I don't need to take chances. Now I don't have to worry about making shots. It has helped my patience."

Lara also revealed that Sobers' advice had helped him in facing Muttiah Muralitharan. "Compared to the first Test where I swept at everything, I am now actually looking at the ball coming out of Muralitharan's hand," he said. "I try my best to read which way the ball is going. If you read him, you don't have to play cross-batted shots."

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