For the first time in their history, they made a white-wash of both Test and one-day series by margins of 2-0 and 3-0 respectively over hapless Zimbabwe.
This is in total contrast to the previous year, when they crashed to a 2-0 defeat in the Tests and drew the one-day series 1-all in New Zealand.
Although Sri Lanka picked up the pieces from there onwards, they failed to register a single Test victory in 11 matches played during the year.
One hopes the current one will be different and the wins over Zimbabwe is just the beginning to a productive year.
Although Sri Lanka are still some way behind towards achieving a consistency in Test cricket, they proved in the recently concluded series, that they are right up there where the overs-specific game is concerned.
Having ensured the three-match series with victories in the first two matches, Sri Lanka tried out a new combination with a new captain for the third and final game, and what a performance they came up with.
The experiment with Sanath Jayasuriya as captain and a subsidiary one-day team proved a tremendous success, the Zimbabweans were left in total disbelief at the end result.
When they rattled up 281 for 6 in 50 overs, Zimbabwe were setting a makeshift Sri Lanka team the formidable task of scoring the highest total they had ever made to win a one-day match on home soil.
The previous highest one-day total chased by Sri Lanka at home was 251 for 6 off 49.2 overs against Australia at the Sara Stadium in 1992-93.
But the manner in which Jayasuriya inspired his team to successfully overhaul Zimbabwe's total was truly the role of a captain who led from the front.
Jayasuriya had already proved it in the practice game against the tourists at Moratuwa firing a Board XI to a four-wicket victory by scoring a scorching half-century. At the SSC, Jayasuriya went one better, to score a run-a-ball century and set the pace for the rest of the team to follow.
The victory at SSC proved why Sri Lanka are regarded as dangerous chasers in the one-day game.
One of the pleasing aspects apart from the bludgeoning Jayasuriya, was the half-century scored by 20-year-old Mahela Jayawardene. What was so conspicuous of the right-hander was his placement of the ball to the vacant positions in the field and his ability to bisect the fieldsmen with crafty stroke-play. These are hall-marks of great batsmen and none does it any better in the current side than Aravinda de Silva. Jayewardene has such qualities and should easily fit into the national side in the near future.
Zimbabwe's failure to post big totals in the first two one-day games, made them drab contests with the strong Sri Lanka batting line-up being hardly tested. But the manner in which Sri Lanka got about chasing an imposing total of 281 would have made Zimbabwe wonder, was it worth the trouble?
With De Silva, having a rare one-day failure, Jayasuriya went on to take the honours bagging the 'Man of the Series' award with 199 runs, four wickets and one catch, added to his winning debut as captain.
If there was a similar award for Zimbabwe, it would have gone to Grant Flower, the gutsy opener, who was his country's leading run-getter in the series. Flower, who scored his maiden one-day hundred during the series, aggregated 203 runs and picked up five wickets to top his country's batting and bowling averages.
One of the greatest plus points for Zimbabwe on this tour was the discovery of one-drop batsman Murray Goodwin. The compact right-hander having proved himself in the Test series with an average of 46, once more underlined his value as a top order batsman by scoring his maiden one-day hundred and averaging 43 in the shorter game.
Zimbabwe's weak point was their middle-order which fell off after some good starts given by the top order. A change in the batting order for the final one-day game, saw them come up with a formidable total, but ultimately it proved to be of no avail.
One factor that emerged out of the tour, was that Zimbabwe were fast catching up on Sri Lanka as a Test nation, but they had yet a long way to go in the abbreviated game, before they can rub shoulders with the world champs.