By Leonard Ratnayake
As announced in a pre-match media conference, Sri Lankan Skipper Dimuth Karunaratna showed up that he really had some hidden tricks in his bag to beat England by 20 runs at Headingly in one of the major upsets in this year’s ICC World Cup tournament.
Defending a modest target of 233 runs against a super hitting England, who have had scores of 311, 334, 386 and 397 in previous matches, all Sri Lankan players rallied around their skipper in Yorkshire on Friday with two Ms, Malinga and Mathews being the major contributors. Probably when Angelo Mathews anchored the Sri Lankan batting line up with an unbeaten 85, he might have never thought that Lasith Malinga would capitalize to make it a decent score to defend with early wickets and take away the man-of-the-match title.
Malinga struck in his first spell to reduce the England score to 26 for two. Thereafter Sri Lanka got the better off Englishmen, maintaining pressure and taking wickets at regular intervals. The only partnership that could have threatened to take the match away from Sri Lanka was when Joe Root and Jos Buttler made a 54-runs before the former was out caught behind off Malinga. Jos Buttler carried his bat until the end but never was able to find a partner to take England to victory. He was unbeaten on 82.
Dananjaya de Silva made important breakthroughs in the middle overs to take the scalps of Moeen Ali, Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid cheaply to put Sri Lankan into winning ways. He bagged 3 for 32. Malinga finished his 10 overs for 43 runs with four wickets, but was unfortunate to collect his 5th and to see off Sri Lanka to victory as Stokes was dropped by Kusal Mendis in a misjudged effort in his last over.
Earlier, Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat but soon were in trouble as they saw both openers Dimuth Karunaratne and Kusal Perera were back in the pavilion in the third over with the score on 3. Sri Lanka’s late inclusion to the tournament, Avishka Fernando then launched his normal power play for 49 runs in 39 balls with two sixes and four fours. It was Mendis’ and Mathews’ duty day as they scored 131 runs among them to take the Sri Lankan innings total to 232 for nine wickets to see that Sri Lanka play their allotted 50 overs.
Be the first to comment