Anil Kumble
ANY WHICH way you look at it we left Sri Lanka with sense of strong disappointment. The scoreline read 2-1 but we know, in our hearts, that we squandered a rare and good opportunity to beat the Lankans in their backyard. Not too many teams have been able to do this in the recent past and Sri Lanka take great pride in their record at home. 
After losing the first Test and coming back strongly in the second one at Galle we won an important toss in the final Test at the P Saravanamuttu Stadium. All series the toss has played a role, but you still have to do well once you win the toss and make the first innings of the match count. Instead what we did was first fail with the bat – 249 after winning the toss and choosing to bat was never going to be good enough – and then further let them off the hook by allowing their tail to stretch their first innings as long as they did.
All the batsmen in our side got starts but at the highest level that's not enough. There were no big scores in the final Test and this really cost us in a game that was a series decider. Virender Sehwag's first-innings double-hundred was a big factor at Galle and without that we would have found it very hard to win the Test and get back into this series. In a team game, it's very important for those who are doing well to really make it count as it helps those who are struggling to overcome their difficulties. Often, when a series has been lost the tendency is only to look at those who fail. But sometimes it's also worth asking, 'those who were in good form and doing well, getting starts, could they have done a bit more?' In a team sport it's the end result that matters, not the batsmen saying the bowlers have failed or vice-versa. You have to work together to make up for whichever department is lacking.
A common theme through our series is that we did not really make the most of the chances that came our way. In the final Test, for example, we had the game in our control till the end of the second day. In both innings we had a chance to make it count with the bat and the simple fact is that we failed to do so. Of course, the injuries coming as they did, all on the same day, did not help our cause in any way, but that's not an excuse on my part. We really missed out on a great opportunity to win a series in Sri Lanka.
Ajantha Mendis was a deciding factor in many ways. Muttiah Muralitharan always gives it his best and he is a champion, but to have two spinners operating in tandem and controlling the game makes it very different for the opposition. In that light, from our point of view, I could have done better and provided more support to Harbhajan, in terms of picking up wickets.
In hindsight there were a couple of situations where we could have done better, where if things had gone our way it may have made a difference. Full credit to VVS Laxman for the way he batted in intense pain and discomfort in the final innings – it was a special effort from him. Ideally we would have liked a couple of our middle-order batsmen to find form early in the series as that could have made a difference.
All in all, though, I'd have to point to two pieces of statistics: we made only one hundred, and took one five-for all tour. You have to have stronger performances than that in the long form. That made the difference between victory and defeat.
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