We've to forget no-ballgate: Dhoni

“To perform at our best, it is better off in the team’s interests to just forget what really happened,” the Indian skipper opined. “But at the same time, being aggressive on the field really helps.

We will try to give it our best shot and do whatever we usually do on the field. We will just forget what happened in the last game and hope that we come out winners, just like in the last game game.” At the start of the tri-series, Dhoni had said playing Sri Lanka was enjoyable because while the cricket was very competitive, it was largely controversy-free.

Asked if he saw the no-ball incident changing the course of the rivalry with Sri Lanka, he replied, “As I said, it is better to just ignore the incident, more than anything else. We try to be as aggressive as possible on the field.

But that no-ball incident won’t really push us to be more aggressive because there is a limit to being aggressive on the field. We don’t want to cross that boundary. Of course, whatever happened was bad, but it is important to be focused and that is what we will do on the field.”

Kumar Sangakkara offered his own take on what to expect. “It depends on how being charged up affects the performances of Suraj and Sehwag,” the Lankan skipper observed. “All the gamesmanship that goes on on the field, the banter, the sledging, like Steve Waugh said, is to try and get a reaction from the opposition. How you react if you are in control, if you want to react, it’s up to you. At the end of the day, you do what’s best for the side, you do what’s best for you and that’s the bottom line.” Hatchet buried, apologies tendered and accepted, but the  reverberations of the unfortunate incident will be felt for sometime to come, one suspects.