Perera bowls Sri Lanka to series triumph

Sri Lanka 281 (Mendis 86, Mathews 54, Starc 5-44) and 237 (D Perera 64, Starc 6-50) beat Australia 106 (Warner 42, D Perera 4-29, Herath 4-35) and 183 (Warner 41, D Perera 6-70) by 229 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details

Remember the way this series began? Angelo Mathews won the toss and chose to bat in Pallekele, and his men were bundled out for 117. They failed even to survive 35 overs. Eight days of cricket later, the series has been decided, and one of these two teams has been completely humiliated. And it’s not Sri Lanka. What a turnaround it has been. Mathews will lift the Warne-Muralitharan Trophy, and Sri Lanka could hardly have won it more comprehensively.

In Pallekele, rain and bad light conspired to drag the first Test into its fifth day, but in Galle Australia could not even reach the scheduled halfway point of the match. In less than two and a half days, they had lost an eighth consecutive Test in Asia. The No.1 team in the world had been beaten – crushed, in fact – by No.7. Sri Lanka’s spinners have embarrassed Australia’s batsmen this series, and in Galle it was Dilruwan Perera who starred.

Perera picked up 6 for 70 in Australia’s second innings of 183 and became the first Sri Lankan to take 10 wickets and score a half-century in the same Test. Only 25 times in all of Test history has a player achieved that remarkable feat. Along the way, he also …

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