Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara, speaking to journalists after the massive first Test defeat to India, said that his batsmen should have shown more commitment in the first innings, where they were bowled out for 229 runs when they required to make 442 runs to avoid the follow-on.

The top order failed again when they followed on and the tourists were comprehensively beaten by an innings and 144 runs.

"We could have really battled it out and kept dragging it on and hopefully got into the fifth day and then anything could have happened with wickets in hand. Had we gone past the 400 run mark, we could have made them bat again and that would have given us less time to bat again and save the game.  Unfortunately, our first innings wasn’t at all the way we wanted it to be. Our commitment in the first innings would have made a huge difference," Sangakkara, who was dismissed dragging on to his stumps in both innings, said.

In the first innings, the Sri Lankans were looking good at 101 for two, but at that point Sangakkara chased a wide delivery and chopped the ball on to the stumps and four overs later, Thilan Samaraweera committed the same mistake, leaving Sri Lanka in trouble. "Both shots were a bit loose and Sreesanth was probably bowling quite well at that time. We had the skill to see that spell off. Once he got through those two wickets, I think it was easier for him to bowl at the batsmen coming after that," he added.

Then in the second innings, with Sri Lanka trying hard to avoid an innings defeat, Sangakkara called the in-form Mahela Jayawardene for a suicidal run after hitting the ball to Yuvraj Singh at mid-wicket and four balls later was himself out, which made some believe that the dismissal of Jayawardene earlier had a bearing on his concentration. "It was something that we didn’t need at that time. I thought the ball went into the gap, but it curved right into Yuvraj’s hands. It was just one of those things where I made a bad call. It didn’t disturb my concentration. You go through that, you think about it, but you are professional enough to put that behind you and keep going. Unfortunately, I got out in the next over and that put us back in trouble."

"We are disappointed. But there is no one else to blame. We have got to look at the 16 players in the dressing room. We have got to accept that we were not good enough. If we had kept India down to under 450, it would have been a chance for us to come back. But 600 runs on, we were always chasing the eight ball and bad batting in the first innings put us further into trouble."