Hard graft pays off for Dilshan

The run-out of Ponting started Australia's slide

Tillakaratne Dilshan put his brilliant fielding in the first VB Series final against Australia down to hard graft with assistant coach Trevor Penney.

Dilshan, who ran out four batsmen and took a catch, has put in extra hours with Penney, who was England's fielding coach before Sri Lanka snapped him up.

"I've worked really hard in the last three or four months with Trevor.

"Whenever he's free I've asked him to do some work with me and that was the key to this match," Dilshan explained.

"We fielded well as a team and when I ran out Ricky Ponting that gave us a chance - it was the turning point."

Everyone thought it was a two-horse race - the third horse has just won Marvan Atapattu

The tourists posted a challenging 274-8 before Dilshan's heroics helped limit Australia to 252.

After finishing 13 points behind the Aussies in the group stage, which also featured South Africa, few people had given the Sri Lankans a chance.

"We were clearly underdogs coming into the series and everyone thought it was a two-horse race," captain Marvan Atapattu said.

"Well the third horse has just won the first final.

"We believe in ourselves and if we keep enjoying ourselves the way we did today, we will get more results like this."

I'm sure sure we can bounce back - we've been playing great cricket Ricky Ponting

Australia captain Ricky Ponting was full of praise for the tourists and felt his side had contributed to their own downfall.

"We conceded 55 runs off their last five overs and then had a few brain-snaps in our batting," he admitted. "We had a few communications mix-ups and it cost us.

"Two of our first three wickets were run-outs and we were on the backfoot for a lot of our innings.

"But full credit to Sri Lanka, they played a really good game. They batted well, posted a good total and certainly backed it up in the field.

"We've got to have a think about where we made mistakes, although there weren't that many.

"There were little judgement errors with out batting but I'm sure sure we can bounce back - we've been playing great cricket up until tonight."