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'Yuvraj, me getting out turning point'
Indian captain Rahul Dravid has termed his and Yuvraj's dismissals as the turning point of the tri-series final.
Indian coach Greg Chappell said his team was a bit low on confidence in its season opener one-day series but hoped that the process he was putting in place would start bearing results by the end of the year.
"The team is not doing particularly well in one-day cricket in recent times. Winning takes a bit of practice and Sri Lanka has a bit more of it in recent times. The Indian team is bit down on confidence," Chappell said after India went down by 18 runs against Sri Lanka in the triangular series final on Tuesday.
The Australian legend also felt that after a win over West Indies in the last league match, India became a bit careless.
"With success, we got a little bit careless and thought success would continue. Well, it hasn't continued and we have got a crisis in confidence. Otherwise, I don't think there is much difference between the two teams," Chappell said.
India thrice came close to beat Sri Lanka in the triangular series and on all occasions ended up losing quite unexpectedly.
Chappell said the players needed to analyse all aspects of their game and try and rectify the mistakes.
"We tried but didn't play well enough to win the series. We were in a position to win three or four of the five games.
"We do have to analyse not only this series but what has been happening in recent times in Indian cricket. We have to analyse all aspects of the game and work out whether that's the way we keep doing it."
"If we keep doing the same thing, we keep getting the same results," Chappell said.
However, the coach was more inclined to blame his batsmen rather than bowlers for the debacle in the series.
"Probably before the series our batting was our strength but it was the bowlers who did most of the good work throughout. We need to see the way we are batting and see whether that's the right way to go about it," he said.
Coming to specifics, Chappell said that eight of the remaining wickets should have been able to get a target of 110 runs from 108 balls.
"When Rahul and Yuvraj were there, we were in good position. Then we lost too many wickets at vital times.
"Veeru (Sehwag) played some good shots and broke the game open for us. But if he had stayed longer, possibly till the 15th over, he could have been handy."
The Australian great said there was much to learn from the present series and keep the progress going for the rest of the season.
"We definitely need to sit down and look at all aspects of this series, review it and come up with some fresh thoughts about how we could move forward.
Chappell said he would start planning for the 2007 World Cup by the end of the year.
"It is too far ahead but by the end of this year, we need to know which direction we are heading. But we have to try different combinations at different times."
Indian captain Rahul Dravid termed Yuvraj and his dismissals as the turning point of the match.
"Yuvraj and me getting out in quick succession was the turning point. We needed to carry on for another 4-5 overs for the lower order to have a crack."
Dravid said he played five bowlers after analysing the trend in the finals in the past when they ended up giving a lot of runs.
"We monitored last few finals where we ended up giving a lot of runs. We were generally a bowler short. If you give other batsmen too many runs, it is not going to be easy chasing in these conditions.
"I thought if we could restrict them to a 230-240 using five bowlers, we have the ability chase it."
Sri Lanka skipper Marvan Atapattu was pleased that his side showed patience even as India was piling up runs at the start of the chase.
"We tried to be patient. We knew that in the first 15 overs, they would come hard at us."
Man-of-the-series Mahela Jayawardene praised his partner Russel Arnold for the century stand for the fifth wicket which helped their eventual tally of 281 for 9.
"We wanted to keep the strike rotating and accelerate around the 40th and 45th over," he said.
Sri Lanka sprang a surprise by asking Dilhara Lokhuttege to bat at number three and Atapattu said it was to upset the calculations of the Indian team.
"We have (Farveez) Maharoof coming at number 10 so obviously we have all-rounders. We need to space them out and that's the reason Lokhuttege batted at number three. We don't want stars, we want a good team," he said.
