'Pat Cummins was relentless' – Tim Paine

Cummins claimed 10 wickets in the first Test as Australia won by an innings and 40 runs in the day-night match at the Gabba. He bowled with excellent accuracy, and got the pink ball to move off the surface, causing the Sri Lanka batsmen plenty of trouble.

His captain, Paine, was proud of the effort, and expressed confidence that Cummins could take wickets against any opposition if he continued bowling the same way.

"If Pat Cummins bowls against anyone the way he bowled this game, he would take wickets," Paine said. "He was just relentless with his line and length.

"He gave them nothing until the end when he got tired. It looked like the ball was coming out of his hand a little better than it was in the India series, when at times his seam was not perfect. I thought in this Test, there were times when it was perfect."

Cummins was brilliantly supported by debutant Jhye Richardson, who took five wickets in the match. Richardson, aged 22, has been impressive in his short international career so far.

Marnus Labuschagne, 24, and Travis Head, 25, are other youngsters to impress and Paine said they had put the team on the right path.

"I thought the way Marnus played, under some real pressure after a couple of early wickets, him and Travis, for two young guys put us in a really strong position, and Jhye in his first Test match was outstanding," Paine said.

"Any Test win you can have in three days is good. It's hard to do. We are nowhere near the finished product. We are a long way off where we want to be. I was really proud of the way we went about it.

"If we execute with the ball the way we did, I think we will have success against a lot of teams on a lot of different surfaces. We can be really proud of the effort, it's a new group coming together."

For Sri Lanka, however, things have been less than ideal. In their last six Tests, they've lost five, including three at home to England. Dinesh Chandimal, the captain, expressed disappointment over his team's inability to post big first-innings scores, and called his batsmen to work on that aspect.

"Credit to the way they bowled," he said. "We don't want to give excuses. But we need to find ways to score runs. As I said, before the game started our main concern was our inability to post a decent total in the first innings. That's one area we need to improve."