Bandula Warnapura and Keith Fletcher go out to toss © Wisden Cricket Monthly

The match itself had been in preparation since the previous July when the ICC finally granted Sri Lanka Full Member status. That moment was more symbolic than the country arriving as a force in world cricket. Many regarded it as final confirmation of the country's importance and standing as an independent nation.

Cricket was in the nation's blood. The first club had been formed 150 years earlier, and Sri Lanka had been a regular stop-off point for touring sides to Australia since Ivo Bligh broke his journey in 1882-83. Scores of legendary players had played in Colombo.

In the seven months since the ICC decision, preparations had been growing in anticipation of the match. More than £100,000 had been spent on modernizing the Colombo Oval and building stands to take the capacity to more than 20,000.

Ramshackle huts near the stadium were demolished and the 20 or so families who lived there rehoused. Other venues in Colombo, as well as Galle and Radella, had been renovated, and in Kandy, the Asgiriya ground, the home of the Old Trinitians, had been doubled in size by removing part of a hill and then constructing a new pavilion.

By the time England arrived on February 5, straight from their tour of India, the preparations were in full swing. Banquets were being organised, special stamps and coins were issued, and businesses and shops were planning to shut on the first day of the Test. One local paper reported than even the police were likely to have one ear glued to the radio.

Sri Lanka arrive: Warnapura faces the first ball from Bob Willis © Wisden Cricket Monthly

But amid riotous scenes England lost their last five wickets for nine runs to give the home side a remarkable three-run victory. The crowd invaded the pitch at the end, lit celebratory bonfires in the stands, and remained in front of the pavilion long after the sun had set, cheering in the dark.

Less than 60 hours later the Test started, but some of the gloss was taken off the occasion as the ground was only about half full - it is estimated there were around 10,000 present at the start - a fact put down to high ticket prices (one day's admission was equal to the weekly salary of a clerk), the fact it was a weekday, and the effect of saturation TV and radio coverage.

But there were plenty of dignitaries, led by the Hon J Jayawardene, the president, government ministers, cricket administrators from across the world, and many former national players. Derrick de Saram, who scored a hundred for Oxford University against the touring Australians in 1934 and who died less than a year later, summed up the feeling of the many former national players in attendance when he said that he only wished he was 40 years younger.

Roy Dias drives on his way to 77 during Sri Lanka's second innings © Wisden Cricket Monthly

Willis noted that the residual dampness made Warnapura's decision to bat dubious, and when they slid to 34 for 4 the captain looked a worried man. "It looked," wrote John Thicknesse in The Cricketer, "momentarily as if the first day's cricket in Colombo would be an embarrassing disaster." But Sri Lanka recovered, and only conceded a five-run first-innings lead, although eventually England's experience told and they wrapped up a seven-wicket win inside four days. "The baby," wrote David Frith in Wisden Cricket Monthly, had been delivered without complications; heartbeat regular, breathing sound, if a little excited."