An improved performance with the ball and in the field means Australia will chase just 210 for victory in their ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup clash against Sri Lanka in Lucknow.
Winless over the first two matches, the five-time World Cup champions showed some major signs of improvement on the back of a four-wicket haul from spinner Adam Zampa as Sri Lanka were bowled out for 209 in the 44th over.
It looked like Sri Lanka were headed for a big score when openers Kusal Perera (78) and Pathum Nissanka (61) put on 125 for the opening wicket, but some inspired bowling from Zampa (4/25), Mitchell Starc (2/43) and Pat Cummins (2/32) backed up with some good catching in the field meant the Asian side were restricted late in their innings.
Sri Lanka lost three crucial wickets after the mid-innings mark. Cummins got one to jag back in the 27th over, and crashed into Kusal Perera’s stumps. In the very next over, Kusal Mendis (9) fell while trying to take on Zampa on the leg-side. David Warner came running in once more and held on to a brilliant take.
Previous game’s centurion Sadeera Samarawickrama fell lbw to Zampa in the 30th over.
Mitchell Starc managed to extract movement with the swinging ball early on in the Sri Lanka innings. He hit the pads of Pathum Nissanka off the very first ball, and Australia went up for a review after being turned down. However, they lost the review after it turned out that there was an inside edge.
The Sri Lanka openers let out a number of quality drives and cuts over the next few overs to get the innings going.
Nissanka and Kusal Perera carried their attacking game into the next Powerplay, taking 33 runs between overs 11-15. They opened their arms against the leg-spinner, Zampa, and took 16 off his first two overs. Perera brought up his half-century in the 19th over, while Nissanka followed with one of his own in the 20th over.
Australia finally had a breakthrough in the 21st over when Nissanka (61) pulled a Pat Cummins delivery in the deep and ended up placing it towards the mid-wicket region. David Warner covered a substantial amount of ground to his left before holding on to an exceptional catch.
However, Perera kept Sri Lanka’s attack up and hit four fours in the next three overs.
Sri Lanka’s new skipper Mendis called it right at the toss and elected to bat first. He opined that a total in the range of 280-300 would be safe for his side, and that the ball might do a bit more under the lights.
Chamika Karunaratne and Lahiru Kumara came into Sri Lanka’s XI in place of Dasun Shanaka and Matheesha Pathirana, while Australia went with the same side that played against South Africa.
Sri Lanka received a blow leading into the game in the form of a quad injury to their skipper Dasun Shanaka. The all-rounder has been ruled out of the tournament, with Mendis taking the captaincy reins.
Australia enjoy a head-to-head advantage over Sri Lanka, having won 63 games to 35 losses, but the Lions have proven to be a handy customer in Asia. Here the sides are evenly matched in the results column, with 18 successes to each of them.
Source: ICC
--Agencies
