Defending a 319-run total, India's bowling and fielding left much to be desired with the seamers erring in their line and length and the fielders spilling catches and missing run out chances last night.
Dhoni said if the team had to be there among the top, they cannot afford to make so many mistakes that could have cost them the final.
"We didn't field well. You got to learn from your mistakes. We made quite a few today on field. Thanks to some characters in the side, we ended up on the winning side.
"It's very special to us. We are winning here after a long time. But if you are the second best team, you can't make these kind of mistakes. Hopefully next time, we won't give width and bowl short to Dilshan."
India played with fire while defending 319, allowed some freebies to Sri Lankan batsmen.
Thilina Kandamby (66) and Chamara Kapugedera (35) were out to make India bleed with a 70-run stand, thanks to some atrocious fielding by India.
Yusuf Pathan dropped a dolly when Kandamby was on 37. He got two more lives in two run out chances blown away by Yuvraj Singh and skipper Dhoni, who had a bad day in office and also missed an opprttunity to stump Sangakkara earlier.
Dhoni dedicated the victory to former board Indian cricket board chief Raj Singh Dungarpur, who passed away last week.
Conceding his seamers struggled when Tillakaratne Dilshan was going great guns, Dhoni said, "Dilshan is one such batsman who relishes short of length ball and can really hurt you. I hope bowlers have learnt and would not give him any width next time because that's an area where he can kill you."
On India's batting order reshuffle, Dhoni said Rahul Dravid agreed to open the innings with Sachin Tendulkar which allowed him to rejig the order.
"Rahul accepted the suggestion to open. He is an ideal number three batsman and we did not want to shuffle him down to number five or six. Rahul opening allowed us to send in some surprise batsmen and accommodate Virat Kohli at number seven," he said.
Harbhajan Singh was named the most stylish player of the match for his five-wicket haul while Yuvraj Singh got the fastest fifty award.
Sri Lanka skipper Kumar Sangakkara felt the hosts had an even chance to win the match but they failed to capitalised on that.
"We were ahead in asking rate at one stage. We were ahead by runs but down in wickets. Had we got some wickets in hands and with the powerplay remaining, we could have won today," he said.
"Chasing 320 and get to this close was good but looking at the opportunities back, I would say we would have won today," Sangakkara said.
On his bizarre hit wicket dismissal, Sangakkara said, "You somewhere find new ways to get out. Unfortunately that was the way today."
Trying to play a shot, Sangakkara's bat slipped out of his hands and fell on the wickets.
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