Dhoni hails vital win

Mahendra Singh Dhoni made 39 to help his side to victory

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India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni believes Wednesday’s three-wicket victory over Sri Lanka has relieved some of the building pressure on his team.

India have had a tough time of it against Sri Lanka 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 India responded at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium on Wednesday 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 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) to injury in the morning. It left us without a specialist opener.

"But Zaheer did the job for us. He hit the right areas and drew the batsmen forward, forced them to play on the front foot and got those edges.

"That performance was backed by some good fielding and the other bowlers.

"We would have liked to win by a bigger margin, but then its all about winning the game."

Subramaniam Badrinath and Zaheer Khan leave the field after seeing India home to a three-wicket win

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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 so we did away with the team meeting in the morning,” he said.

"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."

Dhoni promoted himself up the batting order, but he said the move worked only because Badrinath had shouldered the responsibility.

"Promoting myself worked, but the credit ought to go to Badrinath,” he said.

"He's playing his first one-day international and he was facing (Ajantha) Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan for the first time.

"It's good to see a youngster like him taking responsibility and batting the way he did. It is great for the team."

Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardene said his side had fallen well short of their target when they were asked to bat first.

"We had talked about it for a bit and we though 175-200 would have been a good score on this wicket,” he said.

“We expected the ball to do a bit in the first 45 minutes and we knew we had to survive the new ball. But we lost four early wickets and that didn't help our cause too much."

Jayawardene, however, praised his players for their fighting performance.

"I think the boys showed great character to reach the total we got and the bowlers did a tremendous job,” he said.

"We were in it right to the end, which was great. It was the Dhoni-Badrinath partnership which took the game away from us."