Sri Lanka 288 (48.5 ov)
Australia 206 (47.2 ov)
Sri Lanka won by 82 runs
In the second ODI Sri Lanka made a strong comeback as they have won the game by 82 runs. Winning the toss Sri Lanka elected to bat first and gave a target of 289 runs to the Aussies. Which eventually turned out to be too much for them.
Chasing down 289 runs Australia lost three of their top order batsman within 41 runs. David Warner again got dismissed earlier with scoring only one run. Thisara Perera was the man to strike with the new ball.
Perera picked up Aaron Finch in his second over, Finch who scored fifty in last match could only make 4 runs in this one. Later skipper Steven Smith built a small partnership of 25 runs with George Bailey.
Smith got out cheaply by the hands of Aponso; he was clean bowled scoring 30 runs from 33 balls. Later on Bailey and Matthew Wade took the charge of the Aussie innings and tried to rebuild it.
They both put a partnership worth of 61 runs. Bailey got dismissed on 27 runs. But Wade kept going with the flow, he built another partnership of 64 runs with head.
But all the hopes were gone when Wade got out on 76 runs; soon he was followed by Head who made 31 runs. No one from the lower order could bat till the end and as the run rate went up it was much difficult for the Aussies to reach to the destination.
Soon their innings stopped on 206 runs, and Sri Lanka picked up a victory of 82 runs. It was a great bowling display from the Lankan. Apart from Perera’s 3 for 33, Aponso bagged four wickets. He was impressive in the last match too.
Earlier despite of Faulkner’s hat-trick Sri Lanka scored 288 runs; though there was a chance to reach 300 runs but some silly mistakes in the middle cost the Lankan few wickets.
Three of the Lankan batsmen got their fifties; Kushal Mendis scored 69 runs followed by skipper Angelo Matthews who made 57 runs. At the end Kushal Perera scored 54 runs; apart from these three batsmen Dinesh Chandimal made 48 runs.
Apart from Faulkner’s three wickets; Starc and Zampa got three wicket each. The series is now level 1-1.
