Australia produced a dramatic fightback as Sri Lanka lost their last nine wickets for just 52 runs in their World Cup encounter in Lucknow on Monday (October 16) to bowl them out for 209. Pat Cummins (2-32) started the turnaround for Australia by getting rid of both the Lankan openers after they had put on a century stand. Sri Lanka would have fancied a total of 300 or above with the kind of start they got but once the opening stand was broken, Australia kept chipping away at the wickets to restrict their opponents to a meagre total. Adam Zampa (4-47) and Mitchell Starc 2-43) sliced through the middle and lower order to leave Sri Lanka on the mat.
Opting to bat, Sri Lanka couldn’t have asked for a better start to their innings as Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Perera stroked fifties to set the platform upfront. The initial part of the innings had a very similar pattern to Australia’s game against South Africa at this venue with the Aussie bowlers not quite hitting their straps. There was just a bit of help for the quicks in the pitch and definite turn on offer but the bowling wasn’t consistent enough. Australia didn’t help their cause by misusing their reviews as they failed to review an LBW call off Glenn Maxwell against Perera. The fact that they had burnt a review off the very first ball of the innings forced Cummins to take a defensive stand.
With both openers cruising, Australia needed something special to stage a fightback and skipper Cummins was the one who provided it. With this pitch being at the center meant extremely long square dimensions and the Australian captain’s short ball ploy worked as Nissanka top-edged a pull to deep square leg. A little while later, Cummins got one to sneak through Perera’s slog off the inside edge to give Australia a serious shot at turning things around. Unlike the game against the Proteas, Australia’s fielding and catching was top-notch, more like the Australia that we’ve been accustomed to seeing, particularly in World Cups.
Zampa had an erratic start to his spell while the openers were batting, largely due to Perera’s presence but with two right-handers to work with, the leg spinner thrived in his second spell. The in-form Kusal Mendis was sent packing, courtesy a deceptive leg break with the top-edge taken brilliantly by David Warner who covered a lot of ground to his left from deep square leg. Australia now had serious momentum and started to put pressure on Sri Lanka’s batters who were simply not able to withstand the onslaught. The surface wasn’t the easiest to start on and wickets kept falling like nine pins.
Sri Lanka had slipped from 157/1 to 166/4 in the blink of an eye, and the score read 177/4 when a brief rain delay interrupted proceedings. It seemed like a welcome break in play for Sri Lanka who’d have wanted to use that time to regroup. However, the fall of wickets only picked up in speed on resumption as the last six wickets fell for just 32 runs. Starc started by getting Dhananjaya de Silva to chop on to the stumps before Zampa ran through the middle and lower order along with the left-arm pacer. Maxwell came back to put the final touches on what has been a clearly underwhelming performance from Sri Lanka’s batters.
Brief scores: Sri Lanka 209 in 43.3 overs (Kusal Perera 78, Pathum Nissanka 61; Adam Zampa 4-47, Pat Cummins 2-32, Mitchell Starc 2-43) vs Australia
