DAMBULLA // The Indian captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni believes yesterday's three-wicket victory over Sri Lanka has relieved some of the building pressure on his team. The Indians have had a tough time of it against the Sri Lankans during the past month having lost to the island nation in the final of the Asia Cup before conceding a 2-1 Test series defeat.
Sri Lanka followed that with a comprehensive eight-wicket win to begin their five-match one-day international series on Monday and put further heat on the tourists. But the Indians responded at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium to level the series at 1-1. Zaheer Khan set the tone with four early wickets as Sri Lanka were skittled for just 142. And while India made heavy going of their reply, Dhoni (39) and debutant Subramaniam Badrinath (27 not out) stood firm in a match-winning sixth-wicket stand of 60.
The series will now resume in Colombo, where the final three games will be played, and Dhoni said: "It was important to win and level the series before leaving for Colombo. "Had we lost this, we would have gone to Colombo with immense pressure on us. But now we can afford to relax fully before regrouping for the next game." India had lost the opener Gautam Gambhir to injury before the start of the game and Dhoni said the loss had made it difficult for his side."There was great pressure on us after we lost Gautam (Gambhir) in the morning. It left us without a specialist opener.
"But Zaheer did the job for us. We would have liked to win by a bigger margin, but then its all about winning the game." Dhoni revealed the players had cancelled their usual pre-match meeting so that they could prepare for the match individually. "We didn't want to put more pressure on anyone. There is no point discussing a thousand things and making strategies. "We left it to the individual players to prepare mentally for the game in their own way," said Dhoni.
* PA Sport
