Paul Collingwood tried to play the anchor role in Dambulla but could find no-one to stay with him, even though England knew from the outset that, on a tricky pitch, 180 might be a challenging total.
Tomorrow, the onus will be on Marcus Trescothick, Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff to make better use of their experience.
There is clearly a feeling, though, that Strauss has what it takes to progress quickly after breaking into the team this week at Vikram Solanki's expense.
"For a young lad, he's got a good cricket brain and a professional mind," said Fletcher.
Strauss clinched his promotion by making a half-century during last Saturday's warm-up match in Moratua, a contribution that looked more impressive still when compared with Solanki's duck.
"I was impressed with the way he went about that innings on what wasn't an easy pitch early on," added Fletcher.
"He slowly built it up and handled the situation well. You have a look at someone and decide whether the next step is for them to play for England.
"The selection process is all about making sure you don't replace a person just for the sake of replacing them. You have to feel pretty confident that the next guy can do the job. We've given Vikram a good run. He's had five innings in Bangladesh and here."
The blistering century which Solanki scored against South Africa at The Oval in June filled England with great hope. But he has failed too often since then - seven times in eight internationals.
There is an argument for sticking with what has worked well in Test cricket, namely an opening partnership of Trescothick and Vaughan. The captain seems grimly determined to accept the responsibility of batting at No 3 - and that allows Strauss to occupy his favourite position as an opener.
England (probable): M Trescothick, A Strauss, M Vaughan (capt), P Collingwood, A Flintoff, R Clarke, I Blackwell, C Read (wkt), A Giles, R Johnson, J Kirtley.
Sri Lanka (probable): S Jayasuriya, R Kaluwitharana (wkt), M Atapattu (capt), M Jayawardene, K Sangakkara, T Dilshan, U Chandana, C Vaas, D Fernando, M Muralitharan, N Kulasekera.
