"The biggest positive was winning a series against India after 27 years" - Sri Lanka captain Charith Asalanka
Sri Lankan captain Charith Asalanka feels his side's historic 2-0 series win over India was the "biggest positive" for the country's cricket. India had last lost a bilateral ODI rubber against Sri Lanka in 1997.
For a long time, it seemed like the Lankans had a monkey on the back which they couldn't unload until they tied the first game from a losing position, won the second by 32 runs, and took the third game by a massive 110-run margin.
The win was led by spinners Jeffrey Vandersay (eight wickets) and Dinuth Wellalage (seven), who stood up in lead spinner Wanindu Hasaranga's absence and took half of the total wickets that fell in the three games.
"The biggest positive was winning a series against India after 27 years," Asalanka said after the series via ESPNcricinfo. "The other big positive were the spinners. We had relied on Wanindu Hasaranga, but we've had Vandersay and Dunith playing well here too."
Sri Lanka managed to bowl India out thrice in three games, with tweakers claiming 27 wickets overall. India, on the other hand, failed to get all 10 wickets even once.
"Sign of us maturing" - Charith Asalanka on top-order contributions
Asalanka also said the team's batting plan was to get one top-order batter to score big and others to work around him as the ball gets older and more difficult to hit. In the final ODI, the minimum score among the Sri Lankan top three was 45, 10 runs more than the highest score from India.
"The coaching staff and me as the captain gave that challenge to the batsmen playing up the order, including me," Asalanka added in the same interaction. "If you look through the series the middle order was a little hit and miss, but the top order was successful, so we were able to get to those targets."
"The top order gave great starts and that's the biggest change I see in this team. If you look at our one-day cricket two or three years ago we weren't getting good starts. As the No. 5 batter, I was coming in at the 10 over mark quite frequently. But now there's a foundation, and that's a sign of us maturing," he added.
Sri Lanka will now play a three-match Test series against England, starting from August 21.