Coach Peter Moores insists it was England's failure to deliver rather than tactical mistakes which left them thankful to rain for damage limitation in Sri Lanka.

Alastair Cook's seventh Test hundred and two heavy downpours, the second of which terminated the Test with more than two hours to play, helped England save the final match of the series.

A 1-0 defeat, however, resulted in Michael Vaughan's team plummeting from second to fifth in the official Test rankings and drew criticism from home captain Mahela Jayawardene over a ''negative'' approach.

Cook hit 118 to become only the fourth man in Test history to register seven or more centuries before the age of 23 and guide the tourists, following on 418 runs in arrears, to 251 for six.

''We've got to hold our hands up because, on the first two days of this Test match, I don't think the lads got it right,'' said Moores.

''Every Test up to now we've worked very hard but when we started this Test match we were off the pace.

''A bit of rain and some very fine batting from Alastair Cook, helped by others, has meant we have come away with a draw.

''It's very tough to win Tests here because the wickets are attritional but the way to do it is for your batsmen to go out and get big scores and we've seen that in each game: Kumar Sangakkara, then Jayawardene in Colombo and then here.

''They have cemented their push for victory each time; we got our first hundred in the last innings here. That to me shows we need to play better and we need to score bigger hundreds.

''And we have to find a way of bowling sides out in those conditions.

''Part of that is the bowlers' skill and part of that is putting the batsmen under pressure too and it helps if you've got the runs on the board.

''People talk about scoreboard pressure but it is something that gives the bowlers help because it can lead to mistakes which help you to push on and try to win the game.''

More than 100 overs were lost to the wet weather over the final two days of the series, undoubtedly denying the Sri Lankans a 2-0 victory margin.