http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746’s loss to Sri Lanka in the one-off T20I left captain Michael Clarke with no explanation in his media interaction after the game, except the Sri Lankans had outplayed them in all the three departments
of the game.
Sri Lanka beat Australia by seven wickets at WACA in Perth after having stalled the Aussies to only 133/8 on the pace-filled and bouncy track.
Clarke admitted that it was their batting that gave the opposition a chance to win the game. He added, "They [Sri Lanka] played really well. We were a little bit disappointing with the bat, especially up
front losing four wickets early. I think we got outplayed. No doubt conditions were different to what we just faced in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750, but look, we've had great preparation here, the nets are very similar to what we faced out in the middle so we have no excuses. Sri
Lanka bowled really well."
The defeat also puts pressure on Clarke, as the captain of the T20I side apart from being a leading batsman who has struggled for runs in this format of the game.
As opposed to that, Sri Lankan skipper, Kumar Sangakkara played a matured hand of 44 off 43 balls to win the game for his side with 21 balls to spare. Rather surprisingly, none of the Sri Lankan batsmen found
the going as tough as the Aussie batsmen had earlier in the day.
Clarke agreed that the Aussies could pick up some things from Sri Lanka. He said, "They played the cross-bat shots really well on a bouncy wicket. I think we can learn from that, I think we tried to bowl
a bit too short because there was a bit of pace and carry."
Australia now takes on Sri Lanka in three ODIs at Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane before the home team plays in their first Test match in the Ashes on November 25.
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