Dasun Shanaka’s Sri Lanka completed their series win over Australia in the fourth ODI of the five-match series, clinching the match by a margin of four runs. This was Sri Lanka’s first ODI series win against Australia at home in 30 years. The last time, SL had defeated Australia in a bilateral at home was in 1992. This was also their first bilateral win since 2010.
Shanaka’s team rode on a century from Charith Asalanka in difficult batting conditions and returned to defend 259 runs, courtesy of their spin quartet. The hosts found a hero in youngster Dunith Wallelage, who continued to impress for his side, bowling fearless left arm spin, picking the crucial wicket of Mitchell Marsh. Apart from the 19-year-old, Maheesh Theekshana, Jeffrey Vandersay, Dhananjaya de Silva and Chamika Karunaratne turned up at the right moments to take Sri Lanka to victory.
For Australia, it was another day to forget, as Aaron Finch’s team got another reminder that they might not be very well suited to play low and slow conditions in the sub-continent.
The match was not without a scare for Sri Lanka as well, as captain Dasun Shanaka had his heart in the mouth, spraying runs throughout the over. With 19 required from the final over, Shanaka somehow figured out that he needed to bowl full and quick to Matthew Kuhnemann and ended up giving 14 runs from the first five balls.
As bowling strategy coach Lasith Malinga fumed at the touchline, a long huddle ahead of the final ball ensured that Shanaka bowled an off cutter. The final ball ended up getting lobbed up by the left handed batter, which was caught by none other than Charith Asalanka at point.
For the first time in the history of ODI cricket, the opening batters of a team got dismissed for a dreadful score of 0 and 99.
While Aaron Finch failed to get going, David Warner’s stunning innings, holding the line-up from one end, finished with a beautiful stumping from the Sri Lankan keeper, as he grabbed onto a half chance, with the ball spinning away from the batter.
Take Glenn Maxwell’s dismissal for instance. The off spinner from Maheesh Theekshana turned in from seventh stump, hit Glenn Maxwell at the edge of the off stump and the hawk-eye confirmed that it would have gone on to hit the leg stump.
Maxwell is the best spin batter in this team, and if he found it difficult to negotiate, it only meant that the rest of the batters stood no chance.
Earlier in the day, Sri Lanka were rescued by Charith Asalanka’s patient century. After losing quick wickets inside the powerplay, Asalanka and Dhananjaya de Silva put on a 101-run partnership to stabilise the innings. Asalanka scored 110 runs off 106 balls, the highest runs any Sri Lakan has scored against Australia in the fifth position.
The hosts would have managed to score much more if they had any sort of coordination going between them in the 22-yards. Three runouts dented their momentum in the final overs of the innings, restricting them to a score of 258 runs.
For Australia, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Marsh started off exceptionally well, but the middle overs of spin let them down. All the spinners, Matthew Kuhnemann, Glenn Maxwell and Marnus Labuschange turned out to be expensive for Australia, failing to check the flow of runs. The visitors would have hoped for the pacers to do the trick once again late in the day, but they got hit for runs in the final few overs, just about pushing the target above 250 runs.
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