Spinners did a great job for us: Sehwag

Poor batting cost us the game, says skipper Sangakkara

After coming in for some stick from the Lankan openers, India managed to restrict the visitors to a modest 239 all out, mainly through their spinners and then successfully chased down the target with great ease.

“I think (Ravindra) Jadeja and Harbhajan Singh bowled really well. The wicket was good to bat on, but our spinners did a great job to restrict them to a low total. Even Ishant (Sharma) bowled well in his second spell after giving some runs in the first three overs,” he noted.

Left-arm spinner Jadeja returned a four-wicket haul which earned him the man of the match award and the skipper was greatly impressed with the youngster.

“He was very impressive today. As a captain you can’t ask for more from a bowler. I mean if you look at the series, bowlers have been going for a lot of runs and to come and do a job like that is fantastic,” he remarked.

It was Kumar Sangakkara’s dismissal off his bowling that led to Lankan collapse, but Sehwag maintained is wasn’t that significant.

“We were three overs short in twenty overs time, so I bowled in between. I just wanted to send down quick four overs to maintain the over-rate, but it was because of Jadeja that we could restrict them,” he pointed out.

Lankan skipper Sangakkara blamed his batsmen’s failure to put up a good total for the team’s loss.

 “I think it was just poor batting. We were 165 for one after 22 overs and after that we just lost our way. We were going in with a batsman short and the specialists had to step up and perform the job. I think it was some good bowling and bad batting that did us in,” he stated.

Sangakkara had a word of praise for the way Sehwag led the side in MS Dhoni’s absence. “I think he captained really well. He kept his cool on the field and his no-nonsense approach to batting was good for India today,” he observed.

The left-hander also rued the loss of all-rounder Angelo Matthews through injury. “Definitely, it’s a big loss. He was the one guy who could have balanced the whole side. But unfortunately we lost him to injury.

“But one can’t do much about these things. At the end of the day, one guy doesn’t make the entire side, even though he is an important player. We have to overcome these things,” he said.