http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 – 5th ODI – First Innings Report
Sri Lanka restricted Australia to 211 runs in the first innings of the last match of the five match One Day International series at R Premadassa Stadium, Colombo on the 22nd of August, 2011.
Star of the show for Sri Lanka was none other than http://www.senore.com/Cricket/SL-Malinga-c2540, who claimed yet another hat-trick in international cricket to break the back of the Aussie batting.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/TM-Dilshan-c2691 won the toss and decided to bowl first as the home team did not do well in the series while batting first.
Kangaroos lost the in-form http://www.senore.com/Cricket/RT-Ponting-c2377 consolidated the innings for the visitors. The two of them scored 67 runs for the second wicket partnership.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/DJ-Hussey-c1380 were also off to good starts but they failed to capitalize. Apart from these four, none of the Aussie batsmen were able to reach double figures, which must be a disappointing thing for the visitors.
Although, the Aussie middle order failed but the real disaster for yet to follow for the Kangaroos, as they lost their last five wickets for just one run because of a hat-trick by Malinga. As a result, the whole team was bowled out in
the 47th over of the innings.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Clarke-c51120 and Hussey scored 47 and 46 runs respectively, whereas, Ponting made 31 runs with the
help of six boundaries.
Malinga picked up three wickets for just 35 runs in his eight overs, whereas, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/BAW-Mendis-c1127 also claimed three scalps after giving away 49 runs in his 9.1 overs. Sharminda Eranga also picked up two victims to help his team’s cause.
This by no means is a match winning total by Australia and Sri Lanka should be favourites to win the last match of the series. However, the home team has not been in good batting form recently, which should give hope to the Aussies. Australia
has already won the series by winning three ODIs out of four.
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