Srilanka push Australia into third final at Adelaide

The Lankan Lions have forced Australia into the third final at the Adelaide Oval after battering the Kangaroos by 8 wickets in the second of the best-of-three finals at the same venue. Having been beaten by 15 runs in the first final, Srilanka were certainly
under the pump and required a special effort to turn things around in their favour.

Srilanka made one change to their playing XI as Chamara Kapugadera came in for Dhamika Prasad. Australia included Clint McKay in place of Ben Hilfenhaus. The Kangaroos won the toss and chose to bat first on a placid looking surface.

Matthew Wade and David Warner once again opened the innings but could not repeat the heroics from the first game and separated at the score of 22 when Wade was cleaned up by Lankan opening batsman, Tillakaratne Dilshan. Shane Watson managed 15 runs before
getting run-out due to fine pick-up and throw from Farveez Maharoof off his own bowling.

Captain, Michael Clarke and Warner added 184 runs for the third wicket before Warner fell for 100 off 140 balls. This was his successive century and is the eighth Aussie to achieve this feat. In the meantime, Clarke brought up his century and eventually
was run-out for 117 off 91 balls. His innings included 5 fours and four towering sixes.

Mike Hussey, David Hussey and Daniel Christian combined to make 17 runs as Australia set Srilanka 272 runs to win. Lasith Malinga picked up three wickets while Dilshan picked up one. Two of the batsmen were run-out.

Srilanka started their reply brilliantly as they did in the first game but the difference was that they didn’t lose wickets unnecessarily. Mahela Jayawardena and Dilshan added 179 runs for the first wicket before the former was LBW off James Pattinson for
80. Dilshan completed his century and was caught by Mike Hussey off Brett Lee. He compiled 106.

Kumar Sangakkara and Dinesh Chandimal remained not-out and finished the game with 51 and 17 runs respectively. Lee and Pattinson picked up a wicket each as Lanka won by eight wickets to level the series 1-1. Dilshan was adjudged Man of the Match.

The third and last final of this CB series will be played on Thursday, March 09, at the Adelaide Oval. The team batting first is most likely to lose again so toss would definitely play a huge role in deciding the fate of each nation. Hold on tight for the
final roller coaster ride!

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Posted by Taha Habib on Mar 6 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