Kandy, Aug 7: India capped off a successful trip to Sri Lanka with a 39-run win in the one-off T20I at Pallekele. With a 4-1 win in the ODI series, MS Dhoni’s men kick-started the new season with a bang. No wonder, the skipper was a happy man at the end of it all and praised his team for an all-round performance.

Excerpts from his TV interview during the post-match presentation ceremony.

You must be very happy with your team’s all-round performance today.

We performed very well overall. We slowed down a bit in the middle overs while batting. We thought it would be a high-scoring game just like the ODI that we played here was. But I realised later it was slightly different. The ball was swinging till the 20th over, hence it was not easy to slog. We thought we were 10-15 runs short, especially after the way Sri Lanka started out their chase. However, the bowlers came back beautifully, bowling in the right areas. It was important to take wickets and that’s what we did.

You used Virat and Rohit to fill in the spot of the fifth bowler and they did very well, conceding only 22 runs in four overs.

That’s the big plus point for us. If you’re looking to play with four specialist bowlers and part-timers, it’s important that as a unit they bowl well. If they give 30-35 runs away in the four overs, we’re still happy because our strength is having that seventh batsman. I’m quite happy with their performance and hope it continues.

What is the reason behind India’s dominance over Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka?

I think the wickets have changed. I remember the first time I came here, the ball used to stop at the batsman. The spinners were really effective as some balls turned while other went through straight. Once they relaid the wickets, their nature changed. The first series that we won here after that was a win the toss-win the match series. The pitches were relaid again. In this series we played at a few different venues. Probably we have mastered Sri Lanka’s new wickets more than them. It showed in our performance in this series where despite coming after a long break, we did well in all departments.