We still have to lift ourselves - Jayawardene

Despite a series win, Mahela Jayawardene has said Sri Lanka still need to go a fair distance to hit peak form. Jayawardene, who gave up the captaincy after Sri Lanka's aborted tour to Pakistan in March, felt Kumar Sangakkara was playing the right cards as leader of a somewhat inexperienced side.

"Winning the second Test was a fantastic achievement and a great effort from all the guys in the team," he wrote on his website. "So to play below par and take a 2-0 lead is really pleasing. [But] the fact is that we are not playing brilliant Test cricket right now and there is some way for us to get to our best. As Sanga [Sangakkara] said afterwards, it reflects well on the teamwork and the fact that when we needed something special someone put their hand up.

"The thing is with captaincy is that you need to make bold decisions and you need to think out of the box," he said. "Sanga has been doing that. Sometimes it will work and he'll be applauded. Other times it may backfire and he'll be heavily criticised. That's life, sadly. Sanga knows it too and he has a tough skin so it will be fine for him."

Jayawardene's assessment of what the home needed to do for a clean sweep was simple: "We searched for scoring opportunities and we punished the bad ball. We have to continue that in the final Test."

Having already squandered the series, Pakistan captain Younis Khan was hopeful his side could salvage a face-saving win in the final Test, starting in Colombo July 20. "We have to win this game," he told AFP. "There is a one-day series after this, and if we finish the Test well it will boost our confidence for those matches."

"The batting has let us down badly, but we can't afford another failure," said Pakistan coach Intikhab Alam. "There is a lot of pride to play for in the third Test."