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India v Sri Lanka, 8th match, CB Series, Adelaide

Batting at the death was poor - Jayawardene

Nagraj Gollapudi at the Adelaide Oval

February 19, 2008

	Mahela Jayawardene was unhappy Sri Lanka couldn't push on to a larger total © Getty Images

Mahela Jayawardene, whose 153-run third-wicket partnership with Kumar Sangakkara helped Sri Lanka post a competitive 238, believed the team had themselves to blame for the loss. "We still couldn't get the finish I intended, losing wickets in the end," a visibly disappointed Jayawardene said. At 3 for 161 after 38 overs, they had an excellent launching pad, but only scored 77 in the last 12 despite having plenty of wickets in hand. He also thought India were gifted runs by his side's sloppy fielding.

But Jayawardene praised Sangakkara, his vice-captain and long-time friend, with whom he has been involved in several big partnerships in the past. In the scorching heat, the pair came together with Sri Lanka struggling and performed an admirable rescue act. "The role that Kumar and I have is to bat the majority of the overs. Kumar batted extremely well, one of the best I've seen him play for quite some time," he said. "Credit to Kumar to (help the team) get to 238 from the situation we were in."

India's chase got off to a dreadful start which had them stuttering at 3 for 35, but three crucial partnerships swung the momentum their way and prevented Sri Lanka from making further inroads. "When we picked up wickets we got the opportunity to put pressure, but Yuvi took chances and started hitting the ball. Our line was not consistent and our fielding wasn't up to the mark," Jayawardene said.

"You shouldn't take anything away from Yuvi's innings, but we contributed to that as well." He said that both Yuvraj and Dhoni had played really well in different situations, and refused to pick one innings as more important than the other.

With their third loss in five games, Sri Lanka are at the bottom of the table, six points below second-placed India. "I haven't done my maths yet but I know we need to win two out of our three games and India need to lose all their remaining games," Jayawardene said. "Every game is like a semi-final."

Nagraj Gollapudi is an assistant editor at Cricinfo

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