India were a step ahead: Kumar Sangakkara

Kumar Sangakkara is usually articulate and a smooth speaker. But on Saturday, he was at complete loss of words. And why not, Sri Lanka had to be content with the runners-up tag for the second year in a row. “It is hugely disappointing but satisfying as well in a strange sense because we understand the magnitude of what we’ve done to get here,” said the Lankan skipper after the loss to India.

Making an honest assessment of the game, Sangakkara admitted that a score of 274 was never enough to threaten the Indian batting line-up. “They probably have the best top seven in ODI cricket,” he said. Sangakkara also felt that his side didn’t make the most of Lasith Malinga’s early bursts.

“After we got the first two wickets, we weren’t really tight enough with our bowling. We bowled quite a few loose balls and Gambhir and Kohli made us pay for that,” the southpaw admitted.

After getting Virender Sehwag on the second ball of the match, Malinga forced Sachin Tendulkar to edge one in the 7th over. Lankans felt half the match was won, but Gautam Gambhir and MS Dhoni both had a match-winning knock pending and on what occasion they delivered.

Even Sangakkara admitted to being outplayed by the two batters. “We had something special come from Jayawardene and they (India) had that in Gambhir and Dhoni. They were one step ahead of us,” Sangakkara explained. He showered praise on his counterpart saying Dhoni has been the epitome of captain cool.He didn’t forget to pay tributes to the only centurion of the match and teammate Mahela Jayawardene and admitted that if not for his knock, Lanka would have folded up for 240-250. “He made this wonderful stage his own. He really showed us what he is capable of and what a classy player he is,” the 33-year old said.

The skipper also felt bad for the fact that they could not give Muttiah Muralitharan a fitting farewell. Though the spin-wizard looked completely out of place, Sangakkara justified his inclusion.

“It’s one of those rare days where he hasn’t really done the job for us, but that’s maybe one in 100 games that happens,” Sangakkara said.

“We’re going to miss him terribly. Unfortunately we couldn’t give him a great send off but that’s the way it goes. We were out played today and we have to accept that.” The skipper also paid tributes to outgoing coach Trevor Bayliss saying he was one of the best men to have coached Sri Lanka.

“Trevor grounded us very well. He believed in a lot of old-fashioned hard work, a lot of common sense. He’s a man of few words but what he does say really counts,” Sangakkara explained.