🏏 India tour of Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka vs India, 3rd ODI, Colombo🏏 - Page 40

Avishka Fernando | Player of the Match: Very happy with the innings. The batters got together and did a good job. It was a challenging wicket and a bit disappointed not to get a hundred but happy with the win. (translated from Sinhalese by Roshan Abeysinghe)

Dunith Wellalage | Player of the Series: I want to thank my skipper, team mates and coaching staff. Everyone gave me great support and that's why I am here. We adjusted to the wicket as it was turning. It was same like the first two ODIs and committed less mistakes today. The batters did a good job and then the spinners bowled well. Everyone is supporting each other and I am excited to be part of the team.

Rohit Sharma: I don't think it is a concern (spin problems). But it is something we have to look at individually and as a gameplan. It is a joke, when you are playing for India there is never going to be complacency. When I am captain there is no chance of that. But you have to give credit to good cricket. Sri Lanka played better than us. We looked at the conditions and went with the combinations, there are also guys who need to be looked at and hence the changes. There are a lot of areas we need to look at rather than the positives from this series because we need to be better prepared when we come across such conditions next time. These things happen, series loss is not the end of the world, you will lose an odd series here and there but it is about how you come back after the loss.

Congratulations to SL for winning this match and series by the biggest margin.

Charith Asalanka: I am a happy captain right now. The team did all things right throughout the series. We all knew they are a strong batting line up and we wanted to back our strength, spin was our strength and we backed it. They are in a good mood right now and our coach (Sanath Jayasuriya) is very active. The boys really enjoyed the team environment.

Asalanka takes the trophy and walks over to his team mates waiting for him behind a CHAMPIONS banner. He hands it over to Asitha Fernando and the rest pose for the cameras.

It was a great start for the Surya-Gambhir era but not so much for the Rohit-Gambhir pair. The level of cricket went downwards after the first game; they kept conceding more runs and scoring less. The application of batters on such pitches will be an area of concern. But they will not have to worry about it soon as India are not scheduled to play another ODI this year as of now. As for Sri Lanka, they were swept aside in the T20s and even embarrassed in the final T20I but they came back strongly in this format. That first ODI which they tied proved to be the catalyst as they kept improving with each game and this was their best of the lot. With the way the players and crowd reacted to this win it seemed like a long night of celebrations awaits them.

Rohit Sharma said "Sri Lanka played really well, they outplayed us in all departments".

https://x.com/CricCrazyJohns/status/1821222406968766566?t=LHgQbTD6pnxW0TGBXDuMYg&s=19

Rohit Sharma speaks after the series loss against Sri Lanka

https://x.com/CricCrazyJohns/status/1821198122024128614?t=vq7LkToxKw7he6JYXIb5iw&s=19

Gambhir and Jayasuriya appreciating each other after the ODI series