Lawrence Booth, the new young editor of Wisden, has rightly won plaudits for his first edition, out last week. One little detail in its 1552 pages might stand out with rather more force after England’s recent drawn two-match series with Sri Lanka, in which we hung onto our ranking as the world’s top test side by the skin of our teeth, despite two masterful centuries from Sri Lanka’s captain and the Man of the Series, Mahela Jayawardene. The section in Wisden listing the record stands for each wicket in test matches shows that no fewer than four of these, for the second, third, fourth and sixth wickets, are held by Sri Lanka, twice as many as any other country, even though it only won test status in 1982. But three of these featured D.P.M.D.Jayawardene, including easily the highest-ever stand in any form of cricket, the 624 he and Kumar Sangakkara put on for the third wicket against South Africa six years ago, with Jayawardene hitting 374. He has quietly emerged as one of the most remarkable cricketers in the history of the game.