Tag INDinSL2012

The Indians came on to their pitch and beat them pretty convincingly in the first match, but Sri Lanka have more than just roared back right into the series with a crushing victory.

India were outclassed and outplayed right from the beginning of the match. The batting line-up crumbled really fast and then the bowlers didn't even cause a sweat on Lanka's batsmen as they cruised past the target of 138 in less than 20 overs. Thisara Perera was made the man of the match for his plumb bowling and skipper Mahela Jayawardene was all smiles.

During the post-match ceremony, Perera spoke about the clash and was quoted saying: "I am very happy with this performance and I want to thank my team mates. My first priority is bowling, I don't think too much about my performance, I just know that I have to bowl in the right areas. I want to thank my team mates for backing me always."

Next up, it was the turn of India's captain MS Dhoni, who said that matches like these happened once in a while and that he and the team would work towards the future. "I think we lost too many wickets in the first fifteen overs. After we lost Virat, wickets fell in quick succession and before the batsmen could even assess the conditions they were back in the pavilion. It is important to forget such things because it happens once in a while. We must learn from this but not keep it in our head. The good thing about Premadasa is that there won't be a heavy breeze like the one we had today. In the last couple of games the top five have done well for us and today Gambhir was the only one who did well," he was quoted.

The crowd at the Hambantota International Cricket Stadium went berserk as soon as Jayawardene's name was called out. The winning captain was to talk about how he felt the match went on, and Mahela did just that.

"It is funny what two days of cricket does to you. I think we did a lot of good things the other night and we knew we just had to learn from our mistakes. I don't think we fielded very well today either but the bowlers did very well. We had a chat about losing the first game and that's what is good about our guys, we are always hungry to come back and we even did it in the series versus Pakistan. I haven't seen Tharanga bat like that in a long time, I think we are seeing the old Upul coming back with the way he has been timing it. We have been thrown different challenges and we have to deal with them, Isuru had a tough day bowling with the wind blowing. We will want to come back strong again for the next game as well," he said.

The Lankans are now level with India at 1-1 with 3 more matches remaining. Things have gotten a whole lot more interesting and the series is sure to be nerve-racking right up till the end. The third ODI is on Saturday, the 28th of July.