Rajkot, Dec 15, 2009.
Sri Lanka tour of India, 1st ODI: India v Sri Lanka.
India 414 for 7 (V Sehwag 146, Dhoni 72, Tendulkar 69) BEAT
Sri Lanka 411 for 8 (Dilshan 160, Sangakkara 90, Tharanga 67) by three runs
Post match interviews:
MS Dhoni: "It's quite tough to be cool when you score 400 and almost lose it. First 35 overs we were not really up to the mark, maybe we just accepted that the wicket had got better, maybe we were not focusses. But the way we bowled and fielded after that was awesome. Also we could have scored 450, which would have been an 'above-par' score. Catches, of course, if you don't take offerings from set batsmen you are going to be in trouble." Kumar Sangakkara: "It is actually worse when you come this close and lose and rather than lose easily. Most of the time you can roll over and die chasing over 400, but we almost made. After 35 overs, we should have batted smartly, India held their nerve better than us. At the end of the day, you have to acknowledge that India played better than us - slightly."
Virender Sehwag gets the Man of the Match award. I would have had Dilshan and Sehwag share it, or even Harbhajan Singh take it alone. But it's the batsmen and the winners that often tell the history. Says Sehwag: "I am in good form. I scored 200 in Tests, 50 in T20, I was telling myself I am in good form I have to utilise it. We [me and Sachin] were aiming for 350 to begin with, but MS played really well and raised the bar. In Test matches I score big hundreds, but in ODIs I get out in 30s and 40s, so this is good time to convert them into big hundreds."
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