Skipper Dasun Shanaka dedicated Sri Lanka’s sensational series victory over Australia on Tuesday to the country’s people as the island nation experiences its worst-ever economic crisis.
Australia needed 19 off the final over in Colombo, but Sri Lanka held their nerve despite David Warner’s 99 and some last-minute heroics from Matthew Kuhnemann to win on the last ball of the match by four runs.
The victory in front of an ecstatic crowd at the R. Premadasa Stadium gave Sri Lanka an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match one-day international (ODI) contest, and their first bilateral series win against Australia since 2010.
Photo: AP
It was a rare moment of joy for Sri Lanka’s 22 million people who are in the midst of a painful economic crisis with severe shortages of food, fuel and medicines.
“Not only for me, my teammates, Sri Lanka cricket, the whole country, this is much needed at the moment,” Shanaka said. “I think this should be celebrated by the whole of Sri Lanka.”
“Thank you Sri Lanka, Thank you my PEOPLE!” he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
Put into bat, Charith Asalanka made 110 to guide Sri Lanka to 258 all out.
Asalanka rescued Sri Lanka from a precarious 34-3 as he put on 101 runs with Dhananjaya de Silva, who made 60.
Australian bowlers kept coming back with crucial wickets, but Asalanka reached his century to the cheers of a raucous home crowd.
Wanindu Hasaranga played a useful cameo of 21 not out as he put together 34 runs for the eighth wicket with Asalanka.
Asalanka finally fell to Pat Cummins and Australia wrapped up the innings in 49 overs with two run-outs.
In reply, Australia lost skipper Aaron Finch for nought, with Chamika Karunaratne trapping the opener leg before wicket (LBW).
Warner kept his cool and put on 63 runs with Mitchell Marsh, who looked good for his 26 before he fell to Dunith Wellalage’s left-arm spin.
Australia lost Marnus Labuschagne and wicketkeeper-batsman Alex Carey after they got starts but fell to the Sri Lanka spinners.
The usually attacking Warner tried to grind down the opposition attack as he and Travis Head stitched together 58 runs for the fifth wicket.
Dhananjaya de Silva bowled the left-handed Head for 27 and Maheesh Theekshana got danger man Glenn Maxwell trapped LBW for 1 with a successful review after the on-field umpire denied the appeal.
However, the big moment came when the left-handed Warner missed out on his century, stumped off De Silva.
“If someone had played for David Warner for five or six more overs that could have been a match-winning partnership,” Finch said.
Cameron Green and Cummins attempted to turn the chase on in a 31-run stand, but Jeffrey Vandersay bowled Green. Cummins departed in the 49th over, but Kuhnemann fought until the end before getting out on the final ball.
The final match is at the same venue tomorrow.
By the time Cameron Menzies finally left the arena on Monday, the blood gushing from the gash on his right hand had trickled down his wrist, part of his forearm and — somehow — up to his face. Smeared in crimson and regret, and already mouthing sheepish apologies to the crowd, he disappeared down the steps, pursued by a stern-looking Matt Porter, the chief executive of Professional Darts Corp (PDC). The physical scars from Menzies’ encounter with the Alexandra Palace drinks table after his 3-2 defeat against Charlie Manby at the Darts World Championship would be gone within a few weeks.
Manchester United on Monday blew the lead three times to miss out on moving up to fifth in the Premier League as AFC Bournemouth would not be beaten in a thrilling 4-4 draw at Old Trafford. United have lost just once in their past 10 games, but Ruben Amorim would be frustrated as more points at home were frittered away despite arguably the best attacking display of his reign in charge. Amad Diallo and Casemiro gave the hosts a halftime lead either side of Antoine Semenyo’s equalizer. Two Bournemouth goals from Evanilson and Marcus Tavernier in seven minutes at the start of the
LOW-GOAL SHOOT-OUT: Of the nine penalties in the shoot-out, only three went in, with Flamengo’s Samuel Lino, and Vitinha and Nuno Mendes of PSG netting Matvei Safonov on Wednesday made four straight penalty saves in a penalty shoot-out to help Paris Saint-Germain beat Flamengo in the Intercontinental Cup final and win a sixth trophy of the year. The Russian goalkeeper was thrown in the air by his teammates after his exploits in the shoot-out, which was won 2-1 by PSG after a 1-1 draw after extra-time. It completed a trophy-laden 12 months for the French team, who had already won the Trophee des Champions, Ligue 1, the Coupe de France, the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Super Cup — also on penalties against Tottenham Hotspur in
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) were ordered on Tuesday by a French labor court to pay their former forward Kylian Mbappe up to 61 million euros (US$71.6 million) in unpaid wages and bonuses. France captain Mbappe, who left PSG in June last year to join Real Madrid, had been claiming more than 260 million euros in total from his former club. PSG in turn had demanded Mbappe pay them 440 million euros. Mbappe, 26, also claimed the Qatari-owned reigning European champions had applied the wrong French legal classification to his contract, but that was rejected by the court. The labor court said
RSS