Pallekelle: Irfan Pathan became the first Indian fast bowler in five years to pick up a five-wicket haul and it wsa his efforts in the end which took India home. Irfan who was selected the man of the match for his performance was not too satisfied with his bowling.

“I have been bowling well in this series. In today’s match I bowled a lot of bad deliveries and was a bit lucky to get all these wickets.”

Irfan also thanked the support staff for giving him a lot of confidence, on his batting Irfan said, “I have been practicing quite hard, I am happy with my batting performance in the series.”

Sri Lanka’s stand-in captain Angelo Mathews after the loss said, “It was encouraging to see youngsters taking the responsibility. We gave away far too many runs and that cost us the match in the end.”

On Sri Lanka’s overall performance in the series, Mathews said, “We did a lot of mistakes and that was the downfall. We played badly in crucial moments and that reflects in the result.”

Indian captain MS Dhoni, who played a splendid innings said, “Gambhir and Tiwary gave us a nice platform to play our strokes. It was a good pitch and the ball was coming nicely.”

Dhoni however, showed concern over the bowling department, he said, “We need to improve in both departments especially bowling. It was good to see that our batsmen looked to play long innings as that provided extra cushion to the bowlers.”

By Indian Sports News Network