Good feeling to be among wickets, says Zaheer

“It is a good feeling to be back among wickets. But we are happy that our work as a unit over the last few weeks have finally paid off,” Zaheer said here on Sunday in his post-match press conference.

“It is important to take wickets upfront in one-dayers, and we were not able to do that in the previous few matches. But today we managed to do that and put the Lankans under pressure right from the start. Momentum was with us the moment (Sudip) Tyagi dismissed Tharanga in the first over,” Zaheer said.

Meanwhile, Sri Lankan coach Trevor Bayliss said he was disappointed with the performance of the  batsmen. “I am definitely not happy with the performance, especially with the show of our batsmen. Our batsmen have showed a lot of carelessness and it was certainly not a 213 pitch,” Bayliss said.

However, he did not blame skipper Kumar Sangakkara’s decision to bat first when the normal practice in this tournament has been to chase the target. “It was a deliberate move as we wanted to see how our bowlers will fare while defending a total. We have not done that in this series so far. Of course, they could not do anything significant today as there was nothing much to defend for them,” Bayliss said.

Bayliss also denied that the constant matches between India and Sri Lanka were taking the edge out of the competition. “I don’t think there is any question of overkill. I guess playing regularly against a strong country like India will benefit our youngsters in the long run. Our youngsters have already showed a lot of improvement over the last two series against India. “Look at guys like Suraj Randiv and Chanaka Welegedara…they have come as replacements and grabbed their chances with both hands and proved that Lankan cricket has a lot more to offer,” Bayliss said.