Mahendra Singh Dhoni praised the Pathan brothers after India came close to letting slip a winning position in Colombo.
Dilshan not too disappointed despite slipping to three-wicket defeat
India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni feels his side will learn a valuable lesson from nearly throwing away a winning position against Sri Lanka.
The tourists looked to be coasting towards victory in the one-off Twenty20 International before a middle-order collapse saw them slip to 115-7.
Malinga Bandara did the majority of the damage, picking up top-scorer Suresh Raina (35) on his way to figures of 3-32.
However, Irfan and Yusuf Pathan combined to get India home with four balls to spare, putting on an unbroken eighth-wicket stand of 59.
Tough
"It was tough in the middle while we were bowling and even while batting," Dhoni said. "We were in a very good position and then we played a few bad shots and the pressure was on us.
"From past experience we knew that the ball would do a bit under lights and it could turn all of a sudden.
"We had two new batsmen at the crease and then they used a leg-spinner and a left-arm spinner and that made it difficult for us to even rotate the strike.
"But the Pathan brothers brought was back into the game. Overall, it's a good lesson for us."
The loss of openers in quick time had put the pressure on India, but Dhoni said he had always believed in his team's strong batting line-up to deliver.
Dhoni was particularly pleased that the innings did not rely too heavily on the explosive opening duo of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag, who had both been dismissed after just seven balls of the visitors' innings.
"The openers have most often given us brilliant starts, but sometimes we have lost them early," India's captain added.
"But the good thing is that we have middle-order batsmen who can be relied upon and they have taken the responsibility to see the team through.
"If you see the kind of batsmen in this team, most of them are stroke players. We have assigned a few players the task of taking the team to a good total and the others just bat around them."
Stand-in Sri Lanka captain Tillakaratne Dilshan was not too disappointed with his team's peformance despite slipping to a narrow defeat.
Happy
"I always thought a total of 160-plus was something we could defend," he said. "Sanath (Jayasuriya) and I gave the team a start and then the middle-order chipped in really well.
"Unfortunately I got out in the 16th over, otherwise we could have added another 15-20 runs and that would have been handy.
"In the field we started really well with those early wickets, but then we made too many mistakes.
"We gave away 10 wides which was the turning point in this match. We gave the youngsters a chance in this game and some of the others have come back after a long time.
"Overall, I'm happy with the way the team has performed."
Meanwhile, Dilshan was fined 20 percent of his match fee for Sri Lanka's slow over-rate. They fell two overs short of their target. The rest of the team lost 10 percent each.
