Sri Lanka vs Australia: Spinners, Kaushal Silva set up record series win for hosts

Sri Lanka registered another emphatic win by 163 runs against visitors Australia in the third encounter at Colombo as the Kangaroos were bundled out for 160 runs in the second innings. The hosts declared the second innings at 347/8 after Kaushal Silva scored a fascinating ton to anchor Lanka take a lead of 323 runs and eventually set Australia a target of 324. Already standing on a losing side in the series, the Australian team was up in this match for pride.

The chase began in a decent fashion for the Kangaroos as the left-handed opening duo of Shaun Marsh and David Warner gave them a good start. The two built up a first-wicket stand of 77 runs before Marsh was undone by a difficult take from Kusal Mendis off Dilruwan Perera just at the stroke of lunch.  The misery became more severe for the visiting team as they lost quick wickets after the lunch.  The likes of Steve Smith, Adam Voges and David Warner were scalped early in day’s second session. Warner though, scored a half century but that wasn’t sufficient for Australia to cross the line.  Rangana Herath and Perera’s spin web demolished the Australian batting line up leaving them tottering at 123/6.

Left-arm bowling maestro Herath then removed the last recognized batsman Peter Neville of the Aussie batting and he picked his tenth scalp of the clash.

The 38-year-old spinner didn’t stop his rampage here as he went on to show exit gates to Mitchell Starc too after the left-hand batsman top edged one. Perera didn’t make any mistake and grabbed a stunner.

He eventually picked up a total of 13 wickets in the match.

Earlier, in the first innings, Sri Lanka riding on vice-captain Dinesh Chandimal and Dhananjaya de Silva’s individual hundreds went on to put 355 on the board. In reply, Shaun Marsh and Steven Smith scored tons to hand over a small lead to the visiting team. For Sri Lanka it was Rangana Herath who picked up a total of 6 wickets in the first innings. The lead didn’t effect the Sri Lankan batting line up as they managed to post a total of over 300 in the second innings.

This was Australia’s 9th loss on the trot in Asia and Sri Lanka’s first whitewash as well as a Test series wins against the World champions.