Australia wrap up sweep over Sri Lanka

Australia's up-and-down Test season ended on an emphatically high note this afternoon, as another rampant fast-bowling effort from Mitchell Starc delivered a 366-run win and a clean sweep series success over a sorely outclassed Sri Lanka.

While the Test rankings table suggested the battle between the fifth (Australia) and sixth (Sri Lanka) teams should be tightly fought, the reality proved anything but, the sweep at least pushing the Australians one place higher into fourth (leapfrogging England) to go some way towards better illustrating that gap.

After being belted by an innings and 40 runs inside three days in Brisbane a week earlier, Sri Lanka were bowled out for 149 around 20 minutes before tea on the fourth day of Canberra's historic first Test.

The 2-0 Domain Series result not only represents a marked shift in Australia's fortunes after their 1-2 loss to top-ranked India earlier in the home summer and the away loss to Pakistan that preceded it.

It also provides a fillip for the previously beleaguered Starc, whose 5-46 today ensured he finished a lean Test season with match figures of 10-100, which was the second 10-wicket match haul of his career.

And will likely see him enter the ensuing ICC World Cup and Ashes campaigns with a full head of steam, and brimful of confidence.

The final day of the Australia Test summer played out pretty much as was flagged from the morning's second delivery.

With Sri Lanka still in the shadow of an eye-watering 498-run deficit, and needing to bat for two full days to either force a draw and steal a most unlikely win, Lahiru Thirimanne did his level-best to run out his opening partner, Dimuth Karunaratne.

Thirimanne pushed Starc's second ball of the day to the left of Pat Cummins at mid-on and immediately set off for a needlessly tight single.

Karunaratne, who two days earlier had been rushed to hospital after copping a blow to the neck from a Cummins bouncer, was clearly not convinced a run was there for the taking and understandably hesitated.

By the time he got going, Cummins had gathered the ball and if his shy at the stumps had been accurate then Dimuth would have been run out by several metres.

Not that Sri Lanka were able to cash in on that moment of good fortune, in the same manner that Australia's batters had made hay in the wake of a handful of squandered chances by the tourists' butter-fingered fielders.

Dimuth was dismissed two overs later, in circumstances that almost seem inevitable once the ball is in Starc's left-hand.

The opener pushed speculatively forward at a delivery angled in to him, and which roared through the yawning gap between bat and pad to clip Dimuth's leg bail sufficiently to have it lift marginally from its groove and roll gracefully to the ground.

It was the eighth time in seven Tests that Starc has knocked over the left-hander, and only once across those eight occasions – at Hobart's Blundstone Arena in 2012 – has Dimuth reached double figures.

The only player enduring a less productive run against Australia of late is skipper Dinesh Chandimal, who has looked sadly out of depth batting at number three and once again succumbed with barely a yelp.

Chandimal's return of 24 runs across four innings of this Australia campaign series represents his least productive Test series with the bat, and it was little wonder that he stood his ground after being caught low-down at third slip today in the vain hope of a reprieve.

When television replays confirmed, as much as video technology is capable of, that the ball had carried on the full to Marnus Labuschagne, the Sri Lankan cut a disconsolate figure trudging back to the dressing room.

In the knowledge that similar challenges await against South Africa's potent seam bowlers and historically spicy pitches when his team lands there later this month.

Not even the rejigging of their brittle batting order could spare Sri Lanka from another humiliating capitulation against Australia's seamers.

Thirimanne's occupation of almost two hours finally ended when he fended a Cummins bouncer away from his face, and the Australia quick showed he's not lost any athleticism over the course of six Tests this summer by completing a diving return catch.

Promoted to number four in the place of much-vaunted but sadly out-of-form Kusal Mendis, keeper Niroshan Dickwella curbed his naturally flamboyant style in the vain hope of pushing the match into a fifth day.

The chirpy left-hander, who was audibly full of advice for Usman Khawaja as the Australian scored his eighth Test century the previous afternoon, was also notably silent as he faced a barrage of short-pitched bowling from Starc.

But it was a delivery that didn't bounce as expected that brought Dickwella's downfall, as he played from the crease at a ball from Starc that he thought might rear towards him but, instead, skidded through to tilt back his off-stump.

Speculation as to whether Kusal Perera would bat in Sri Lanka's second innings after being forced to retire hurt as the result of a fearsome head knock he suffered yesterday was settled when he walked to the middle with his team listing at 4-83.

But his involvement could not have been briefer, as he jabbed anxiously at the first ball he received from Starc and managed only an inside edge that was neatly scooped low to the turf by Tim Paine.

Starc's bid for a maiden Test hat-trick was met by the full-face of Dhananjaya de Silva's bat, as he defended stoutly to deny the Australian the milestone he recorded twice in a solitary JLT Sheffield Shield match last summer.

Dhananjaya's bat proved fallible soon after, when he attempted to clip Jhye Richardson through the leg side and presented Travis Head with a soft catch at mid-on to expose the Sri Lanka tail, while still more than 400 runs in arrears.

After his meritorious debut at the Gabba last week, it was Richardson's first wicket for the Test that Starc dominated on behalf of the Australia seam attack.

And which confirmed the huge gulf between the fifth (now fourth) and sixth-ranked teams on the ICC's Test ladder, when matches are played on Australia's home patch.

Whether that form can be transplanted to the UK for the upcoming contest against another mid-range Test outfit will be known from August.

Australia XI: Marcus Harris, Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Travis Head, Kurtis Patterson, Tim Paine (c/wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Jhye Richardson, Nathan Lyon

Sri Lanka XI: Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne, Dinesh Chandimal (c), Kusal Mendis, Kusal Perera, Dhananjaya de Silva, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Dilruwan Perera, Chamika Karunaratne, Vishwa Fernando, Kasun Rajitha

Domain Test Series v Sri Lanka

Australia: Tim Paine (c/wk), Joe Burns, Pat Cummins, Marcus Harris, Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Kurtis Patterson, Will Pucovski, Jhye Richardson, Peter Siddle, Mitchell Starc, Marcus Stoinis

Sri Lanka: Dinesh Chandimal (c), Dimuth Karunaratne, Lahiru Thirimanne, Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama, Dhananjaya de Silva, Roshen Silva, Niroshan Dickwella (wk), Kusal Perera, Dilruwan Perera, Lakshan Sandakan, Suranga Lakmal, Kasun Rajitha, Chamika Karunaratne, Vishwa Fernando

First Test: Australia won by an innings and 40 runs

Second Test: February 1-5, Canberra