"The important thing for us was to make sure that we go very hard at them. We hadn't played Test cricket for a while and we needed to get back into things pretty quickly and maintain our standards. That's the challenge we had. We are always focusing on improvement in every game," was the initial reaction of Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene after his side's thumping victory at the Sinhalese Sports Club (SSC) ground yesterday.

But for the Tigers, this was not the case.

If anybody thought that Mohammad Ashraful's men were shell-shocked after their disastrous performance to lose the first Test of the three-match series by an innings and 234 runs, the biggest margin of defeat against the Lankans, he is simply living in a fool's paradise.

It seemed that the Bangladesh players took it normally, almost as if it was just another defeat, as if it was expected against the mighty Lankans who are almost invincible at their own den. Making the same old mistakes and then promising to rectify and 'learn from the mistakes' for the next game is now a common feature for the Bangladesh national team players.

"It was frustrating that we took the match to the fourth day with five wickets in hand and then were all out within half an hour. I think we can take inspiration from our third day's effort. We threw away wickets but hopefully we will not make the same mistakes in the next game," was the usual statement from Ashraful, who made a miserable debut as captain.

"Our second innings performance proved that if we concentrate hard, it is possible to play quality bowlers. For most of the second innings we actually stuck to our gameplan and it came out pretty good. That is the confidence we will take as we move on to the rest of the series," he added.

What was more surprising: The way Bangladesh batted on the third day or losing five wickets within half an hour on the fourth day morning?

The first one might be right. Because it is rare in Bangladesh's Test history that they batted throughout a day but it was familiar the way they lost their last five wickets within five overs as it has, time and again, happened during their six-year stint as a Test nation.

Jayawardene was asked whether Bangladesh's pathetic batting on the fourth morning after their fightback on the third day surprised him. The soft-spoken Lankan skipper was diplomatic about the issue.

"I don't know what the reaction in the Bangladesh dressing room is but we were hungry for the victory," he said adding that it was a brilliant effort by his side under tough conditions.

"The batsmen who got in made sure that they made big hundreds. Everyone chipped in, especially the lower-middle order. The fast bowlers were brilliant. They were very aggressive in creating opportunities. Overall, it was a brilliant performance but there are areas we can still improve. Our ground fielding was brilliant but we dropped chances," he explained.

He also praised his off-spin wizard Muttiah Muralidaran who picked up the man-of-the-match award for a match haul of nine wickets.

"On a placid track, the way Murali created the opportunities on the first day to take five wickets actually changed the whole game for us. From that moment, we knew that the Test was in our hands unless we made some silly mistakes. It's brilliant to have a guy like Murali. Now we've got a bowling lineup which creates opportunities among themselves with Lasith (Malinga), Dilhara (Fernando) and (Chaminda) Vaas. Murali has less pressure now to run through teams," he said.