Friday, December 7, 2001 When Sri Lanka's lion cubs took their first steps in Test cricket, 20 years ago, West Indies were the most formidable team on the planet. Michael Holding and Andy Roberts terrorised batsmen, Viv Richards and Gordon Greenidge assaulted bowlers. When Sri Lankan mothers wrapped their fledglings up in cotton wool, after yet another bad day at the wicket, they might have told them fairy tales of how Sri Lanka's swordsmen would one day defeat the dread warriors from the Caribbean. They might even have imagined a whitewash. If it ever happened Sri Lanka would be top of the world.

Some fairy-tales do become reality - VVS Laxman's thrilling strokeplay to steal last year's series from Australia, for example, or Ian Botham's summer of 1981. But this 3-0 defeat of West Indies is a dream that only came half-true. Lara was sensational and Sarwan solid, but the rest may as well not have turned up. As a result, regardless of how great a landmark it may be in their cricket history, Sri Lanka aren't much nearer the top of the world than they were a month ago, although the one-and-a-half-man West Indies are dropping like a clown's trousers.

Statistically, this is Sri Lanka's best-ever result. In reality it ranks behind their home victory over Australia in 1999, and their 2-1 victory in Pakistan in 1995-96.

Sri Lanka's win at The Oval in 1998 also had more significance in terms of staking a claim to be taken seriously — it took the ICC Test Championship to end that particular struggle. But Sri Lanka's zenith came in 1996, and it was in one-day cricket. Few World Cups have been won with such authority.

Unlike West Indies, all of Sri Lanka's batsmen played consistently well in this series. The concern for the Sri Lankans, though, is that upward mobility depends on strength in depth in bowling. Muralitharan and Vaas took 50 of the 60 wickets available in the Test series, and Vaas has never been one to run through the top teams. With Zoysa and Dilhara Fernando — when back from injury — Sri Lanka will have an attack to be proud of, certainly when you compare them with the trundlers of the 1980s. But it all still rests too much on Murali's magical wrists. Lara has vividly demonstrated the pitfalls of a one-man strategy.

Sri Lanka's success is to be savoured, but danger lies in being flattered by it — Dav Whatmore, you can be sure, will not be.

Born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, Kamran Abbasi is assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. His Asian View appears every Friday on Wisden.com.

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