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| Mahela Jayawardene congratulates Kumar Sangakkara after the latter reached the 10,000-run milestone, in Sydney, on Friday |
Sydney: Sri Lanka clinched an emphatic eight-wicket bonus-point victory by the Duckworth-Lewis method in a rain-shortened One-day International against Australia, at the SCG, on Friday.
Chasing a revised target of just 152 in the 41-overs-a-side contest, Sri Lanka veterans Mahela Jayawardene (61 off 67 balls), Tillakaratne Dilshan (45 off 41) and Kumar Sangakkara (30 off 29 balls) easily chased down the runs with 16.5 overs to spare.
Sri Lanka needed to overhaul the target in 32.4 overs to get a bonus point. They sealed the deal much quite easily in 25th over.
The victory, thus, lifts Sri Lanka to seven points on the triangular series ladder, just two behind Australia and three behind India with all teams having completed four matches.
Earlier, electing to bat, Australia were all out for 158 in 40.5 overs after the match was reduced to 41-overs-a-side affair with rain interrupting the tie at the end of the 26th over when Australia were 88 for six. Man of the Match Thisara Perera bagged two for 29 besides being involved in two crucial run outs — Matthew Wade and Brett Lee.
Sri Lanka were cruising right from the beginning of the run chase with the openers Dilshan and Jayawardene putting on 74 runs from 11.4 overs before the former was out.
Left-arm pacer Mitchell Starc bore the first brunt of Dilshan’s aggression as the former Lanka skipper smashed a short-ball over square leg boundary for a six in the fourth over.
Dilshan fell in the 12th over to a McKay length ball wide of off-stump and the opener edged it straight to David Hussey in the slip cordon
Run rate slowed down a bit after Dilshan’s departure and Sangakkara reached his personal milestone to become the 10th batsman in the world and third Sri Lankan — after Sanath Jayasuriya and Jayawardene — to score 10,000 ODI runs with a single off left-arm spinner Xavier Doherty in the 18th over.
Jayawardene, who hit his 63rd career fifty on Friday, carried his bat through the run chase, facing 67 balls and hitting five fours. “Our bowlers can bowl in different conditions. They are capable of adapting well to various conditions,” said Jayawardene after the match. “When those two catches went down, I wondered if this was again one of those days, but we pulled it back really well,” he said.
Perera was visibly ecstatic after receiving the man of the match award.
“I am really happy to play in Sydney, this is my second match here. I am really happy. My wife is also here,” he said.
Ponting, meanwhile, said that the wicket did not behave the way his team anticipated it to.
“The pitch didn’t have the sort of pace we thought it had. It certainly did not have any pace and their bowlers capitalised,” he said. (Agencies)
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