Given a positive and attractive lead by Michael Vaughan, England looked a different batting team yesterday and won their only first-class match here outside the Test series with some authority in the end.

Ominously for Sri Lanka, perhaps, Kevin Pietersen signalled that he may have come to terms with the conditions, having averaged only 28 in five one-day innings in October and failed to reach double figures in his two previous innings on this visit. His partnership of 65 with Alastair Cook in the hottest part of the day removed any serious doubt about the result before England knocked off the 246 runs required in a flurry of fine shots after tea by Matt Prior.

That James Anderson ran in at full bore in the only over needed to finish off the local team’s innings for 81 in the morning also cleared away any uncertainty about which of the fast bowlers will join Matthew Hoggard and Ryan Sidebottom in the team for the first Test, which starts on Saturday.

Anderson’s ankle injury — said to be a bruise, not a sprain — was not bothering him and a good bowl during the lunch interval confirmed his wellbeing even as Stephen Harmison was having the delayed precautionary scan of his back in a local hospital. It confirmed that there is no new injury and Harmison was padded up and ready to bat yesterday had he been required, but already it looks as though his return to the Test team, if it comes, is more likely to be in New Zealand after Christmas.

“How much of an impact this result has on the Tests remains to be seen,” Vaughan said after the game. “Yesterday we were looking like losing, so to come through and win shows a lot of character, which is a good sign for the team. We’d have liked a hundred in this game because there hasn’t been one on the trip so far, but everyone’s hitting the ball nicely and hopefully they are in good form.”

Vaughan struck the ball handsomely off the front and back foot yesterday, stroking four fours in his 11 overs at the crease and making 28 of his 50 partnership with Cook before trying to hit Jehan Mubarak on the up and lifting the ball to cover. Mubarak switched from medium pace to his more usual slow off breaks for the remaining two wickets that will have kept him in with a chance of getting into the Sri Lanka team, but Cook’s simple technique and some decisive driven fours kept England’s momentum going.

Ian Bell, caught at mid-on trying to hit Tillekeratne Dilshan’s off spin over the top, was the only batsman yesterday not to get going. Cook must have been disappointed more by the manner of his dismissal than by the fact that he did not see his team all the way to the target. For the second time in the game he was leg-before sweeping. So well does he hit the ball straight that he would do well not to become obsessed with the “need” to sweep on Sri Lankan pitches, especially if the length of the ball is either too full or too short to play the shot with safety.

Pietersen’s innings was the most reassuring for England. He never looked in trouble, drove and defended with conviction and probably regretted only the fact that Kaushal Lokuarachchi, the leg spinner who is recovering from surgery to the bowling hand that he injured missing a fierce caught-and-bowled chance on Monday, was unable to challenge him. By the time he edged a cut to Kaushal Silva, standing up to Chamara Kapugedera’s medium pace, he looked ready for the Test.

There were still 79 runs for England to make, however, so there was time for the intriguing case of Ravi Bopara versus Owais Shah to develop further. Both played very well until Bopara, having hit an early straight six, was caught and bowled, playing a fraction too early.

England travel by road to Kandy this morning, but they will not be joined by Rudi Koertzen, the South African umpire, who has been withdrawn at short notice by the ICC from the first Test and replaced by Alim Dar, who will stand with Asad Rauf, his fellow Pakistani official.

Koertzen mistakenly gave Kumar Sangakkara out for 192 in Sri Lanka’s Test against Australia in Hobart this month, the latest among a number of his errors to be exposed by television replays in the past year, although balanced by many borderline decisions shown to be correct. As third umpire in the World Cup final he was mainly responsible for getting the regulations wrong at the end, but he remains respected by most players, not least by Sangakkara, who has praised him publicly.

An ICC spokesman said that the switch had nothing to do with any fallout from Hobart. It was because of the knock-on effect of the withdrawal of Billy Bowden, of New Zealand, from the India-Pakistan series for personal reasons. Koertzen will replace Bowden for the second Test of that series, starting at Eden Gardens in Calcutta on Friday. It could be a case of from frying pan to fire, if only because, during evidence given by Darrell Hair at his racism hearing in London in October, it was alleged that Koertzen had referred to “Pakistan cheats” in a phone call.