Hobart, Feb 28: “It's tough to swallow such a loss”, is how a dejected Sri Lankan skipper Mahela Jayawardene put it after India pulled off a sensational victory over his team to keep their hopes alive in the tri-series today.
“Virat batted brilliantly I think. You have to give him a lot of credit. The way he batted in the middle period, pretty much scoring a boundary every over. We probably didn't bowl that well, we were a bit shoddy with the fielding as well. It's tough to swallow but it's a good game of cricket and well deserved by the Indians,” said Jayawardene after the match.
“we knew they had their license to go out and play their shots today. For the first 10 overs, we didn't hit our areas consistently. We gave away a few too many and they had the momentum after that”, he said.
Jayawardene said he would have chosen to bat as well and also defended his decision to delay the bowling powerplay which he took only in the 28th over.
“We would have batted first. We felt with runs on the board, it was always going to be tough. And 320 couldn't' have asked for anything better than that.
“As for bowling powerplay, that was the decision taken because I wanted to bowl my spinner. But they were going at nine an over and I couldn't just take the powerplay then. Just wanted to delay it for a few overs, thought when the ball gets older, the guys will get a bit more grip and it would be tougher for them to play.
“I was thinking when we get a wicket, we would get the powerplay in but it didnt' happen. Tactically I was trying to make sure we push them back with the field back and we could come back into the game”.
The Sri Lankan captain said he wanted to delay taking the powerplay by five overs or so.
“I wanted to take the powerplay around the 20th or 22nd over that was my idea. I wanted to just delay it by five overs. But they had the momentum. They knew they could take risk and they took. And it paid off for them”, he said.
