We executed our plans perfectly: Jayawardene

Sri Lanka captain Mahela Jayawardene was delighted with his team's showing in the 51-run win over India at Brisbane on Tuesday in the ongoing Commonwealth Bank Series. Jayawardene also praised his new ball bowlers and said the team has been getting better as the tournament has progressed.Sri Lankan players celebrate the dismissal of Virender Sehwag. (AFP/Getty Images)

"We are getting better and better. We played smart cricket, kept wickets in hand and put up a good score. But we are still making some mistakes, hope we don’t make them in the bigger games," Jayawardene said, while also lauding the efforts of his fielders. Jayawardene was also happy that Sri Lanka were able to execute their plans perfectly against India. "It was a crucial game for us. We didn’t have a good start but we have come back strongly. We played some consistent cricket. We now need to take this momentum forward and get ourselves in the finals," the Sri Lanka captain said.

The win has taken Sri Lanka to second place in the points table, and Jayawardene said, though there were a couple of dropped catches in the Indian innings, he was happy with the manner in which his team responded to pressure situations while batting and defending the target they had set India.

Jayawardene also said his bowlers stuck to the plan of concentrating on the off stump line as a ploy. "The Indian team has a strong batting line-up and how we restrict them is by creating the opportunities. We are not letting them get away. We did drop a few catches but still it's not the end of the world for us. We put up 289 on the board so we had a good total," he said.

Jayawardene though criticised Indian spinner R Ashwin for running out Lahiru Thirimanne in the 40th over of the Sri Lankan innings when the batsman had backed up too far. Thirimanne had backed way out at the non-strikers' end and Ashwin removed the bails to claim a run-out appeal against the batsman. The tense situation was resolved when India's stand-in captain Virender Sehwag withdrew the appeal.

"I know the rules have changed. I also felt that there was a little fault in our guy as well. But honestly, I don't play that way. I would not have got the bails off in the first place. If a batsman keeps doing it regularly and tries to take advantage of it, then maybe. But I think the Indians did the right thing. The seniors got along and took the right call," Jayawardene said.

The new ICC rules state that a bowler can run-out a batsman even as the bowling arm is poised to release the ball.

Sehwag said Ashwin had warned Thirimanne earlier, and added though Sachin Tendulkar also joined the discussion with himself and the umpires, he took the decision to withdraw the appeal. "Ashwin had warned the non-striker once and in the next over he took the bails off and appealed. The umpires then asked me, and I said okay we'll give him one more warning and if he does it again then we'll go for it. It was my decision, we all were discussing but I decided," Sehwag was quoted as saying by Times of India.