Cricket Third Test:England, currently second in the world Test rankings, could swap places with fifth-placed Sri Lanka by the end of the third Test, which was due to make a delayed start here today after more bad weather. Only Father William, who incessantly stood on his head, could regard that as progress but Michael Vaughan, the England captain, cut a far from despondent figure.

"You never want to drop in the rankings," he said. "But I do believe there are a lot of good things happening around the team. We're very much a team in progress and getting better. There are areas for concern. Scoring first-innings hundreds is one of them and we haven't got 20 wickets here yet. But I've seen enough to suggest that that could happen this week.

"We've got to continue with the level we showed in Colombo, try to grab our chances in the field, convert our fifties into big hundreds and try to see how much pressure we can put on Sri Lanka and see if they fold under it."

England will fall to fifth spot unless they level the series, 1-1, by winning here. If Sri Lanka win in Galle, they will move to second; a draw would see them move up two places to third.

Vaughan said: "It would be a good achievement for us to come here and get a (series) draw. The team is progressing nicely. If we keep working and progressing the way we are, Test match wins will come sooner rather than later. Alastair Cook is really young, Ravi Bopara looks like he belongs at the highest level. Steve Harmison is back, Matthew Hoggard is bowling well. All the batters look like they're playing in a controlled fashion."

Vaughan's batting, always authoritative, sometimes even regal, has been reassuring while Ian Bell's "unconverted" fifties have seen him look the part at number three without really nailing the position. Matt Prior played important innings in Kandy and Colombo and, without looking a natural, has generally kept wicket well.

Owais Shah was disappointed to miss out in the opening Tests of the series and to be unable to show off his obvious talent. If Vaughan believes that Bopara looks the part - and there has been too little evidence of that in the first two Tests - the same could be said, with more assurance, of Shah after his Test debut against India almost two years ago, since when he has won only one more cap.

If Vaughan is pleased, the Sri Lanka captain, Mahela Jayawardene, whose side reached the final of the World Cup in the Caribbean at the start of the year, must be approaching flannelled delirium.

"We've been pretty consistent," he said, "not just at home but away from home also. We've competed with the top teams in the world. We're not going into this Test thinking all we need to do is draw to win the series. The fact we will shoot up to number two in the world by winning here is a very good incentive for us."

Sri Lanka, though, could become an ordinary side very quickly. They have already had one high-profile retirement, in the case of Sanath Jayasuriya, in this series. Next year there will be another: Chaminda Vaas. He may have lost a yard of pace but he is still a thoughtful and clever bowler who will be missed.

The batting is too heavily dependent on Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara and the selectors, as Marvan Atapattu put it, are muppets headed by a joker. Then there is the maestro, Muttiah Muralitharan, who in mileage terms has been round the clock more times than Mr Hertz.

Last night Jayawardene looked down his nose at Kevin Pietersen's assertion that the England batsmen were picking and playing Murali with greater confidence than in the past. "If they mean they're blocking him left, right and centre, probably yes," he said scornfully.

But this, at Galle, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami, is one of those occasions when a game of cricket comes runner-up to the occasion. "It will be a very emotional match," said Jayawardene. "A lot of people who saw us playing here four years ago aren't with us any more. But we must move on."