Kumar Sangakkara must have seen it a thousand times yet when it came towards him on Friday it was of little help. Chaminda Vaas' fingers cut across the ball at release, the ball swerved across, gripped the pitch and broke back in. Sangakkara pushed out like a novice, the bat was stabbed outside the line and the ball cut back in to take a fatal inside edge. Vaas' slow offcutter had done it again.

Tillakaratne Dilshan, the explosive Sri Lanka batsman, has signed with New South Wales for next summer's Twenty20 domestic competition. New South Wales won the Champions League Twenty20 last year but did not requalify for the lucrative tournament and have wasted no time in securing a big name to partner the likes of David Warner and Phillip Hughes.

Kumar Sangakkara, the Sri Lanka captain, has called for several changes to increase the popularity of five-day cricket, including paying Test players significantly more and not broadcasting the game in the city hosting the game until a large crowd turns up at the ground. Speaking on Cricinfo's video show Opening Up, Sangakkara also said every country should have an iconic series like the Ashes to draw spectators to the stadiums.

There has been plenty of talk over the decline of Tests, but Sangakkara said it was premature to write the format's obituary. "Everyone is talking about Test cricket dying. Maybe we are pre-empting its death and trying to kill it before its time," he said. "When it comes to players, they value playing the five-day version a lot more than they do any other version."