Srilanka’s win over Australia ends long Indian tour of the continent

Srilanka defeated Australia by a close margin of 9 runs to book their place in the finals of the Commonwealth Bank series. The best of three finals will take place from Sunday, March 04. Srilanka needed to win in order to advance through to the finals else
India would have qualified.

Winning the toss and electing to bat first, Srilanka struggled to make 238 runs in their allotted 50 overs. Dinesh Chandimal brought up his fourth half-century of the tri-series and became the highest scorer in the process. He made 75. Kumar Sangakkara made
64 and Lahiru Thirimanne scored 51 runs. Only Rangana Herath was able to enter the double figures after that and remained not out on 14.

Daniel Christian picked up five wickets including a hat-trick. It was Christian’s first ever hat-trick and became the fourth Aussie to achieve this feat. James Pattinson picked up four wickets in his first game of the series while the other wicket came in
the form of Mahela Jayawardene’s run-out.

Australia got off to the similar start as did the Lankans and lost both of their openers at the score of 18. Peter Forrest once again failed to deliver and was caught behind of Lasith Malinga for 2. Australia were reduced to 26/3 before Michael Hussey and
stand-in captain, Shane Watson, added 87 runs for the fourth wicket before Hussey was picked up by part timer Thirimanne.

Watsons’s departure for 65 triggered a collapse in the Aussie ranks as 140/4 soon became 187/8. David Hussey showed some resistance and was the last man to go not before launching his fifth half-century of the series in his eighth outing. He made 74.

Malinga picked up four wickets while Kulasekara picked up two. One wicket each was picked up by Senanayake, Rangana Herath and Thirimanne. Srilanka’s Chandimal was given the Man of the Match award.   

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Posted by Taha Habib on Mar 2 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry