You should know by now, Yahaluweni, how receiving any fancy international award is quite an achievement.

When, though, a year later, the same prize is earned with the same credit titles, it explains the high level of pride with which the Sri Lanka team is run. It has as much to do with captaincy and leadership as it does with player skills, and how this reflects on the team as a whole over two years where standards have maintained their professionalism.

It is this high level of proficiency shown by Mahela Jayawardene and the side which earned them the impressive accolade of the International Cricket Council’s Spirit of Cricket award for the second successive year.

Not only is it a reflection of the team’s general on-field behaviour and as such the team’s own in-house administrative skills and team ethics. It is also a sign of how, as a side, it has bonded as a unit with solid player support.

It is a rare accomplishment in this age of intense media hype, unnecessary bad-mouth episodes as well as selection and public pressures. And maybe, just maybe, the vitriolic letter writers will stop their needless warbling about the team’s so-called deficiencies when it comes to examining reasons for defeat.

In Asia, you soon come to learn the myth that a team has to win every time they step onto a field. No ifs, buts or maybes. Ignored, as has been explained often enough by captains in post match reviews how the margin of error comes into play: in a limited-overs game it is often as narrow as a mis-fielded single scored in a power play, a dropped catch, a failed run out, or a dive in the gully, or on the boundary, that saves those runs which count.

A careful analysis of the way the Sri Lanka team has been run since Jayawardene was thrust into the captaincy role in 2006 shows how much of the style of Sri Lanka’s game is wrapped around the way a team thinks and works and professional pride.

Or, as Jayawardene said in his all encompassing cricInfo interview last month, ‘You don’t have to be ugly to be aggressive.’ It is a pertinent point. By ‘ugly’ he is talking about on-field ‘thuggery’ – the verbal abuse as opposed to subtle sledging.

There was a succinct reminder of how this involved the differing mindsets between teams when earlier this year during interview for a feature for an Australian magazine ‘Inside Edge,’ he commented on what he had learnt from tough rock face of the game and its cutting edge.

While the interview had been about his first century at limited overs international level at the Adelaide Oval in 1999, it also brought up other subjects that centered on team behaviour. There is the distinct feeling how that particular game became a mental voyage of discovery in the stormy waters of the international game and what followed.

It was January 23, 1999 during the Australia Day Weekend: the game involved England and Muttiah Muralitharan being called for throwing by Ross Emerson for the third time in his career.

If it was ugly enough at how the match unfolded on television, there were moments when the unsightly confrontational scenario descended into an inferno and teetered on the precipice of abandonment.

Somehow, it needed the then 21-year-old Jayawardene to bring dignity to the petulant scenario and here he steps into history with a maiden limited overs century of rare character and purpose that engineered a stunning victory against England in chasing down an impressive 303 runs needed to win and keep their series hopes alive.

Jayawardene was thoughtful when the episode was discussed and went a little deeper into the way the players reacted to the highly explosive situation. From this, and Ranatunga’s uncompromising and contrary leadership, it can be seen how Alec Stewart, then England’s captain had partly lost the plot.

Stewart admits in his autobiography ‘Playing for Keeps’ how that Adelaide game had been the one he least enjoyed in his international career. The background to this and Jayawardene’s latest comments, explain how muddled thinking by an official can create untold problems.

On page 152, Stewart writes how it was that Emerson had told him of a premeditated decision to call Murali the first time he stood in a match. That this had been raised at England’s pre-match meeting comes for Stewart’s knowledge of such pre-planned action.

When the question arose of how the team should react in such an event, England’s acting manager on that tour, David Graveney, said the team should get on with the game.

As Stewart writes, ‘Ranatunga was clever enough to ensure that they didn’t go off the field, because the umpires would have surely have awarded us the match.’

Sure, Ranatunga overstepped the boundaries of the law, as he harassed the umpires about where they should stand. But an umpire foolish enough to let it be known that he intended to call Muralitharan for throwing was also acting against the spirit of the law and that of being unbiased.

Yet, just how the players feelings spilled over from the intense emotional turmoil is the incident where Roshan Mahanama lowered his shoulder and bumped Darren Gough when taking a single. There may be other views of this of course, but seeing the replay often enough further showed up that unseemly incident.

It is the sort of infamous tactic you always find in disreputable events as rugby with its thug element (on and off the field), football and lesser sports.

Emerson’s action on that fateful day not only led to the change the wording of the law but also created the administrative mechanisms and instructions that umpires would in future report their doubts about a bowler(s) action.

Stewart at least admits to ‘not feeling proud at all’ after viewing a video of England’s fielding efforts. He also admits on page 154 to having a ‘Sneaking respect for Ranatunga and the way he led his team and stood up to the opposition’.

As Jayawardene put it in a recent interview, it had been Ranatunga who once had said, ‘we will play the same game at the same level because we have the same kind of talent.’ It meant how Sri Lanka as a team needed to fight for their beliefs and rights as players.

Just as interesting as are the Stewart comments are the comparative views of former England coach Duncan Fletcher.

A long-time Colombo acquaintance, Sunil de Soysa, brought with him when he recently returned from England a copy of Fletcher’s controversial offering ‘Behind the Shades’. In the autobiography there are some pungent remarks as well as thoughts about any number of the game’s more notorious on-field episodes.

While he clears some issues, he hits on others that explain a certain view, which unless you know the man, especially during his playing days, his frankness may seem out of place. To him, team harmony on and off the field is important as it lays the foundation for a successful side. It is where behaviour requires discipline. This is an area with which Jayawardene can so easily identify.

This is from a family background and school system that placed a high emphasis on such quality and values, and where language is moderate: so unlike rugby and football, where there are no such values and language used is the sort of crude level used by adolescents trying to show off.

A captain and coach soon learn who in such cases are the culprits and ringleaders and allows the team culture discipline to either weed them out or have them working as part of the team. It has been a successful ploy from junior to senior level.

In this Fletcher felt that Sri Lanka’s behaviour in 2003-04 during England’s tour of the island was less than acceptable and sledging tactics reached a low point. How different to the 2006 side led by Jayawardene, thrust into the role after the debilitating back injury to an unfortunate Marvan Atapattu.

When Jayawardene stepped up to accept the Spirit of Cricket award, he knew what hard work it had required to achieve such a reward.

As he said when accepting the trophy; "The captain has to set the example, but at the same time, every player in the team has to take responsibility and play the game in the right spirit.

"You have to be aggressive and passionate when you play for your country – you have to want to win. But you don’t have to cross the line and be personal. There are ways of being aggressive while still controlling your anger and passion.

"It feels great to win this award, because it is a team award. On the field the lads give everything they have, so to do it in the right spirit as well means a lot to me and my teammates."