Kumar Sangakkara calls Melbourne win the second-best ever
An overjoyed Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara has described the team’s win over http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 at Melbourne Cricket Ground Wednesday 3 November as the second best ever in his career. The Sri Lankans needed
240 to win the game and had slumped to 107/8 before the ninth wicket partnership between Angelo Mathews and Lasith Malinga added a record 132 runs to see the visitors through. The previous record of 126 runs for the ninth wicket had stood for 27 years.
Speaking in the press conference after the match, Sangakkara said, "It's the second-most remarkable, I think, or at least one of two, because we were five wickets down for six runs against http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747 in a
final and managed to get home in that with Murali hitting 33 off 15,”
However, Sangakkara did acknowledge that winning the game against the world champions and the current number one side in the ODIs was much more special than the Bangladesh game.
As expected, Sangakkara was all praise for the pair involved in the record, Angelo Mathews and Lasith Malinga. Sangakkara said that at 107/8, one could only hope for miracles and praised Mathews for the maturity
that he displayed.
The captain added, “He's [Mathews] coming off a tough couple of months with the bat, he's had an injury so he can't bowl, but I think he just repaid our trust many times over with the way he batted. And
Lasith Malinga did the hard yards in the bowling part and then managed to go out there and again contribute fantastically to the win."
Even Mathews categorically said that the side wasn’t looking to win the game when the eighth wicket fell. He added that the pair just wanted to bat on without worrying too much about the target. He said,
“When we got close to 200 we thought that we could do it, because we had a big partnership and Lasith was batting extremely well, he was hitting big sixes and it was so easy for me to knock it around and play freely."
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 now leads the series 1-0 and will play the second ODI at Sydney on Friday, 5 November. The Lankans have never won a series in Australia.
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