This was a new experience for Joe Root. He had never led England to victory overseas before. But he managed not to get too carried away after England’s emphatic win.

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“Hopefully this is not a one-off. We go to Kandy with a huge amount of confidence”, he said with a quiet smile on his face. “It is not just us; it has become difficult across the board to win abroad so a win is sweeter when it happens in venues like this”. Just over three months ago Sri Lanka defeated South Africa by 278 runs in Galle. Now England had won by 211.

It was a team effort with relatively unheralded cricketers, man of the match Ben Foakes, Keaton Jennings and Jack Leach coming to the fore while Stuart Broad and Jonny Bairstow were on the sidelines. Despite the victory there may be lengthy discussions about selection before the next Test at Pallekele on Wednesday. “I’m going to enjoy that difficult meeting”, said Root. “It is going to be tough. But that’s what you want. You want guys performing and to have to make those tough calls - whether that’s leaving someone out, keeping the same team or shuffling the pack slightly. We’ll have to wait and see”.

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England dominated the Test from lunch on Tuesday after a frenetic first session with the bat but Root explained their determination to take a bold approach at the start. “We’ll probably take a bit of slack for the way we played [in the first two hours]. It was more the execution of the shots that was frustrating. If we had sat in our bunker and waited for a good ball when the pitch was tacky and spinning quite quickly we could have been 50 for five and it’s a lot more difficult from there”. He has a point not readily accepted by some of the old-timers; Root then alluded to how well his players adapted to changing conditions.

No one did that better than man of the match, Ben Foakes. “As a debut it was all right wasn’t it?” said Root. “To come in and play with such maturity and understanding of his own game in a difficult position, not to get overawed and to be really calm and take every chance, well, it was great to see”.

Foakes described his sudden elevation to Test cricket as “an unbelievable place to be”. He has not had time to let everything sink in. He was asked about Kandy. “Jonny will be fit potentially.” He kept thinking. “So I guess he’s the number one and if I play one game I’m quite happy with that one.” Somehow that is unlikely to be the case.