England's historic victory in the second one-day international over Sri Lanka was prompted by a meeting of forthright views between the players pointing out areas they could improve.

Monday's emphatic 119-run defeat in the opening encounter of the five-match series appeared to have established a pattern and suggested England's struggle to compete with Sri Lanka would continue.

But a team meeting at their jungle-based hotel the day after their mauling prompted a major turnaround in fortunes with England winning their first one-day international over Sri Lanka on their home soil for 25 years to set up a potentially exciting series.

Left-arm seamer Ryan Sidebottom, who set the tone for England's stunning display to clinch their 65-run triumph with two wickets in his opening spell, revealed: ''We had a laid-back 10-minute chat just to say what we didn't do well and what we could have done better.

''It was all about jogging the memory. As a team, nobody likes criticism but we all talk to each other about how we can improve and maybe the batsmen will pitch in with what they can see.

''We don't handle criticism very well but as a team you've got to do that and I think we've done that sitting down for 10 minutes.

''It's not about having a go at players, it's just reinforcing what we could have done better and what we should have done that we didn't do - it's not criticism, it's helping us to improve.''

And coach Ottis Gibson, the Durham player of the year, had a big role to play.

''We sat down with Ottis the day after we'd lost and talked about a few things we could do better in the next game,'' explained Sidebottom. ''We've all got slower balls and we can all bowl them, it was just a case of putting them into the game which we didn't do in the first game - it was a bit of an eye-opener for us seeing what they can do over here and how they perform.''