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Amila Aponso 4 for 18 seals Sri Lanka’s 82-run victory
- Updated: August 24, 2016
Sri Lanka 288 (Mendis 69, Mathews 57, K Perera 54, Zampa 3-42, Faulkner 3-45, Starc 3-53) beat Australia 206 (Wade 76, Aponso 4-18, T Perera 3-33) by 82 runsScorecard and ball-by-ball details
Sri Lanka’s openers gone cheaply. A recovery led by Kusal Mendis. A Sri Lankan attack heavy on spin options. Australia’s batsmen struggling to have any impact. A Sri Lankan victory. Steven Smith could be forgiven for feeling like this was a flashback to the Test series just ended. But the big difference was that Australia already have a win in this one-day series. At the R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo, Sri Lanka merely levelled it 1-1 with three to play.
It was a victory built on two big partnerships: a 125-run stand between Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal, and a 103-run effort from Angelo Mathews and Kusal Perera. Chandimal was the only one of the quartet who did not reach fifty, falling instead on 48 and thus missing the chance to become the first Sri Lankan to score six consecutive ODI half-centuries. Besides those two stands, Sri Lanka’s wickets fell rapidly in three clumps.
The last of those clumps featured a momentous event – James Faulkner became the sixth Australian to take a hat-trick in an ODI. But by that late stage in the innings the damage had been done. Sri Lanka had done enough to set Australia a target of 289. No team had ever won an ODI at this ground chasing such a hefty total and on a pitch offering plenty of turn Australia could not rewrite history, despite Matthew Wade’s career-best innings.
One key difference from the Test series was that Sri Lanka opened with seamers from both ends – curious given that Nathan Lyon had taken the new ball for Australia earlier in the day – and the move brought immediate success. Thisara Perera’s first ball drew David Warner into a drive that was edged behind, and in his next over Perera had Aaron Finch dragging one on. Australia were 16 for 2, hardly the kind of start required for this chase.
Sri Lanka had recovered from a similar position, but forcing the scoring rate against Sri Lanka’s spin attack was never going to be easy for Australia. Left-arm spinner Amila Aponso in particular proved difficult to get away, and the …
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