Nasser Hussain's grin said it all as he spoke after England's victory over Sri Lanka in the third VB Series match at Brisbane. In the great scheme of things the game might have had minor importance, but as England's first win in 14 attempts since they arrived in Australia it was almost priceless. "It's a relief, especially for the lads who have been out here right from the start," Hussain said. "The likes of myself, the coach, Stewey [Alec Stewart] and Tres [Marcus Trescothick] have been here from the start and it's been fairly poor and fairly embarrassing.

"It's something we felt we had to put right. We'll have a couple of beers tonight but we can't afford to go over the top because we have another one-day international in three days. But it's important that we enjoy the fact that we've won a game."

Hussain admitted that there was still much work to be done. "Our last four overs were diabolical to be honest, but apart from that I was very pleased with the youngsters and the energy in the field."

He was particularly happy with the performance of Jimmy Anderson. "I set a field and he bowled perfectly to it. He must have been under so much pressure. Sanath Jayasuriya - you give him one stump's width and you are murdered. Jimmy bowled 11, maybe 16 good balls at him and then threw up the slower one. It was just perfect bowling. I did the easy bit, he did the hard bit for a young lad."

But there was little to cheer Jayasuriya as his side slid to their fifth defeat in six ODIs. "We didn't field that well and missed important catches and that handed them 25 to 30 more runs, otherwise it would have been a really tight game," he said. "Most of the English bowlers I was playing against for the first time and early on they bowled well, bowled straight, with good line and length, putting the ball in the right areas."

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