Aussies start their summer with a win ..

Australia has extended its Test winning sequence to 13 with an innings and 40-run victory over Sri Lanka in the first 3 mobile Test match of the summer series.

Pace paring Brett Lee and Stuart Clark ignored persistent rain delays after more heavy showers in Brisbane to wrap up the tourists' second reply 15 balls after lunch.

Lee, named man-of-the-match, finished with match figures of 8-112.

65 minutes of play were lost in the morning session but Sri Lanka still lost wicketkeeper Prasanna Jayawardene for 20, Farveez Maharoof for 18 and, crucially, Chamara Silva for 43 before Dilhara Fernando was clean bowled by Lee on the stroke of lunch.

Clark ended Sri Lanka's second innings of 300 all out when he bowled Muttiah Muralidaran on leg stump for four.

Few glimpses of the test ... watch out

Silva, Sri Lanka's brightest hope, had been given a lifeline early on day five when he was dropped on 10 by a diving Phil Jaques at square leg but was out in a virtually copycat dismissal to his pre-lunch departure on day three.

Lee and Clark had earlier used the second new ball to quickly remove Jayawardene and Maharoof before a 50-minute rain break disrupted Australia's attempts to wrap up the game in the morning session.

Jayawardene, who hung around for a resolute 37 in the first innings, became Clark's 50th Test victim after adding just one to his overnight score.

Maharoof reduced the deficit to double-figures during a spirited run-a-ball 27 which featured one glorious front foot drive down the ground.

But after looping chances evaded the fieldsmen at gully and leg slip, he succumbed to Lee, the paceman softening him up with a tirade of bouncers before unleashing one which pitched and straightened uprooting his off stump.

Maharoof might have felt a touch unfortunate with heavy rain already circling the Gabba, the players departing the field moments later for the first weather-induced delay of the morning.

Silva twice pulled Lee to the boundary in taking 12 from his first over after the break before the players again left for rain just minutes later.

But a natural tendency to attack once again undid Silva on their return. As in his flamboyant first innings 40, he chased a wide delivery outside off stump but succeeded only in picking out the same deep backwards square fielder - this time Mike Hussey.

The last team to defeat the hosts in Brisbane was the great West Indian side of the late 1980s.