Hindsight is a beautiful thing - and if it is someone else's cock-up that you can see in your rearview mirror, it's even better.

When doing its homework ahead of today's key game against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka likely noticed a few things: one, that Bangladesh depends on a slew of slow left arm spinners to apply the choke after the seamers have done their stuff and two, that in the game against India, the Bangla spinners could weave such tight lines mainly because India hobbled in the initial overs, never making any attempt to take singles or otherwise proactively push the two lead seamers off their line and length.

On being inserted by Bangladesh at the Queen's Park Oval, Trinidad, Sri Lanka sought to learn from India's mistake, and went hard at Mashrafe Mortaza and Syed Rasel. Both openers were beaten, even embarassed, on occasion; both openers should, given a smidgen more luck for Bangladesh, have been out early.

Two Jayasuriya edges flew at catchable height through the second slip region; in the 4th over, Upul Tharanga took off as if he had heard the starter's gun at the Olympic 100 meters final and Rasel, fielding on the follow through, missed the stumps with Tharanga yards out of his ground.