Mahela Jayawardena returns to form and speaks to CricInfo

Mahela Jayawardena, who has just been replaced as vice captain by Marvan Attapattu, has had a torrid time in recent months and had failed to score the number of runs that his obvious class demands. However with the pressure on his place in the team increasing he responded well in this test match with a fine 77.

Speaking to CricInfo after the match Mahela was clearly delighted: "I have been struggling for big scores and had just been getting 20's and 30's which is not enough for me and the team as well so I am very happy to be back in form."

Asked whether the vice captaincy had been a burden on his shoulders he responded: "I don't think it was a burden on my shoulders it was just that in some of the innings I had played I had been a bit unlucky. I have been through a bad patch, which every player goes through. It just happened to come when I had the vice captaincy. It doesn't matter, as long as I am in the team I just want to score runs."

Mahela has been frequently cricticised for getting out in the 20's and 30's, a fault that he is extremely aware off: " I want to tighten my game up a bit because when I feel like when I am hitting the ball pretty well I get carried away with some of the shots. I think it worked pretty well today. But its consistency what matters and hopefully I go through the whole tour like this and get some big scores."

Talking about the success of the Sri Lankan side in recent times he pointed towards the togetherness of the team: "We have wanted to play as a team and that is what the success has been about in the last year or so. We will have bad runs but that is part of the game and as long as we give 100% that doesn't matter."