No matter how much Sri Lanka emphasised that their only interest was in the first Test, which started yesterday, they would not have been human had thoughts not strayed from NW8 to the power struggle unfolding in Colombo.

Sanath Jayasuriya, pushed into retirement from Test cricket only last month, has accepted an invitation to reverse his decision and will join the squad before the end of the Lord’s Test. With 102 Tests to his name already, there are two more left for him in this series.

Jayasuriya met Ashantha de Mel, the new chairman of selectors, in Colombo on Wednesday morning and agreed to abandon a retirement that became inevitable when the previous selection panel announced its intention to blood young openers during the England tour. Not a ball has been bowled at the time of writing and already it is not so much a blooding as a culling.

There were a few niceties to respect. Duleep Mendis, Sri Lanka Cricket’s chief executive, said that Jayasuriya had to put in a written request to come out of retirement. After that the selection committee would meet over a glass of arrack, decide to pick him, and the selection would have to be ratified by the sports minister. This should all be a formality.

The reselection of Jayasuriya, at 36, does not have the inescapable logic that De Mel suggests. His form has declined markedly in Tests in the past two years. Although he has been one of the most exciting batsmen of his generation, his idiosyncratic technique has increasingly exposed him at Test level.

He had refused a farewell Test against Pakistan in Colombo, preferring to retire immediately after he learned of plans to overlook him for England, but he then dislocated a thumb in the second Test in Kandy and everything ended quite dolefully.

For the Sri Lankans, it represented irresistible gossip. Murali, the great spinner, was greeted by Aravinda de Silva on the edge of the outfield on Wednesday, as he was reflecting upon his first Test at Lord’s. The conversation was in Sinhalese, but the scampish eyes were a universal language.

"It is a very controversial thing," Murali agreed. "He retired for the last Test. Now we hear he might be coming. It depends on whether the selectors want to go with the old people or want to go with the new young players to improve the team.

"It is a new side and everybody wants to be patient. We can’t just ask for miracles. The average age is about 25. I am proud of the cricket we have played in the last 10 years, but this era will soon finish and a new one will come."

So, Murali finally plays a Test at Lord’s, at 34, with 611 wickets in 102 Tests, at least 50 wickets against every Test nation, and endless technical printouts to assert the legality of his action. He has a five-wicket in a Lord’s domestic one-day final, and once bowled out Middlesex while playing for Kent, but that is the extent of it.

He will particularly relish his battle with Andrew Flintoff, who is a good friend. "He is the best player in England and the best all-rounder in the world. When he bats he frightens the bowlers. He has not frightened me yet because when I bowled against him in 2002 he was not the best, he was just learning. Now he is the best, we will see how he plays."

Any England fans who deride Murali’s action with cries of no-ball may even have Flintoff to mess with. "He is a good and caring man," Murali said. "When we were playing for the World XI in Australia, there was an incident when people were shouting ‘no ball’ at me from the crowd. He came up and said ‘shut this mouth’ and ‘stop this nonsense.’ "Good on him."