With a final ticket in the pocket, a satisfied Mahendra Singh Dhoni described Thursday’s eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka as a “well-written script”.

Lanka captain Angelo Mathews, on the other hand, rued losing the toss in tricky conditions.

The following are excerpts

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: The match seemed to be a well-written script. It was a good toss to win, the bowlers started off well, set the game for us nicely and restricted Sri Lanka from posting a good score.

I must also admit that Sri Lanka suffered a huge blow after Tillekeratne Dilshan retired hurt after an injury. We capitalised on that.

The spinners bowled well in the middle overs. There was a little bit of drizzle in the middle, but that didn’t stop our bowlers from producing good quality spin bowling.

The ball was still doing something and Bhuvneshwar Kumar had bowled for 8-9 overs. We also had to keep a few overs of fast bowling for the death overs. So there was a choice between me and Virat Kohli. With Dinesh Karthik around, I decided to bowl and keep a few overs of Ravichandran Ashwin for the death overs as Sri Lanka had some left handers in their team.

Suresh Raina has always been excellent on the field and it helps the captain immensely. Overall, a very good fielding performance by us.

Angelo Mathews: The toss was crucial. Had we won the toss, we would have bowled first as well. But we really don’t have control over such things. We did not play well and the batsmen failed to respond. But I must give credit to the Indian bowlers… They really bowled well.

Ishant Sharma (MoM): I got a lot of bounce and pace from the wicket, and that helped me a lot as that is my strength. I had stuck to my plan and it worked well for me.

I must also compliment our new ball bowlers Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Umesh Yadav who really bowled well up front. As far as I am concerned, I don’t mind coming on as the second-change or the third-change bowler as it hardly matters when you are in good rhythm.