Strangely, for most parts of this fifth one-day international, it looked as if it was India who were playing for pride rather than their beaten opponents in the series. Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his boys might strike a happy pose with gold medals hanging around their necks, but to walk away from Lankan shores with such an embarrassing final blow — they went down by 112 runs chasing a revised target of 216 in 44 overs — somewhat takes the sheen away from their first ever one-day series win in these parts.

The fact that it was an inconsequential match seemed to show — Dhoni reverted back to five bowlers in the XI and capped that decision by underutilising Munaf Patel when Thilan Thushara and Jehan Mubarak were slaughtering the attack. And then, the batsmen walked in and out of the pavilion, managing just 103 in 26.3 overs between them.

Mendis strikes back

India’s lack of intensity also put Ajantha Mendis back among the wickets. Yuvraj Singh’s nightmare run with the bat continued as he was cleaned up by the first delivery Mendis sent down, marking the left-hander’s fifth straight failure in the series. To that, the Lankan spinner added the scalps of Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan and Pragyan Ojha to suggest that perhaps the Indians hadn’t really figured him out after all.

Dhoni’s rare failure wasn’t a blot big enough to deny him the Man of the Series award, but even after finishing on the right side of a 3-2 scoreline, there were a few points to ponder.

... contd.