Image courtesy of: The Indian Express
Jayawardene single-handedly crushed Australia’s hopes and dreams of reaching the semi-finals
Sri Lanka fans would have been beating their drums and blowing their trumpets louder than ever as Mahela Jayawardene’s brilliant knock of 84 catapulted his side into the semi-finals, while Australia could only bury their face in their hands and think about what could have been if they had played harder.
Jayawardene was fantastically backed up by 23-year-old batsman Lahiru Thirimanne, who registered a slow, but steady half-century.
Australia’s stand-in captain George Bailey won the toss and decided to bowl first due to the overcast conditions.
Sri Lanka’s innings got off to a rocky start as they lost two quick wickets, one of them being Kumar Sangakkara, who was their hero against England.
However, Tillakaratne Dilshan steadied the innings with a sensible innings of 34 before he too was dismissed.
Thirimanne and Jayawardene did an excellent job to ensure Sri Lanka made runs, lost no wickets and frustrated the Australian bowlers to the extent where every delivery they bowled looked easy enough to be dispatched to the boundary.
While Thirimanne took a more cautious approach to his innings of 57, which only included four boundaries, Jayawardene rocketed past his half-century in almost no time at all and he continued to stand tall, even after the wicket of Thirimanne.
Jayawardene managed to keep the scoreboard moving, but the alarming number of wickets that fell in such a short space of time threatened to derail everything he had worked so hard for.
Jayawardene remained unbeaten on 84 off 81 balls, which included 11 boundaries, as Sri Lanka posted a respectable total of 253.
Dinesh Chandimal also deserved some credit for his quickfire 31.
Mitchell Johnson was the pick of the Australian bowlers with three wickets, while Clint McKay, James Faulkner and Xavier Doherty all picked up one wicket apiece.
In response to their target of 254, Australia faltered badly and soon found themselves in an extremely vulnerable position at 80/5.
Adam Voges scored an excellent 49, Matthew Wade added 31 and McKay also pulled his sleeves up and shouldered some of the burden, scoring an impeccable 30.
However, despite these contributions, Australia found themselves 20 runs short of their target after being bowled out with 45 deliveries to spare.
Nuwan Kulasekara did most of the damage as he took three wickets, Rangana Herath added two and Shaminda Eranga, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews and Dilshan all snapped up one wicket each.
Bailey was understandably disappointed after having lost such a crucial match.
“It would have been nice to get over the line in the end,” he said. “Our goal was to do it in the 29 overs, but we never got going. There was no value in the result as such, semis was our main aim. Michael Clarke is still improving and there is still a big series ahead. There are plenty of positives around and it was good to see the last two fight it out.”
Sri Lanka captain Mathews admitted that his side’s score of 253 was a bit on the lower end, but praised the entire team for their fight, passion and never-give-up attitude throughout the match.
“We knew it was going to be tough, defending 253,” Mathews said. “Thirimanne and Jayawardene batted well to get us to that score. I have never seen a crowd like this in the Oval before, and it was good to have the support. Our first target was the semis. Will enjoy tonight and see how it goes after that.”
Jayawardene’s innings of 84 earned him the Man of the Match award, and he said: “It felt really good (to get to 11000), but winning this was the icing on the cake. We are playing hard and passionate cricket, but we need to enjoy the cricket. That has been the mantra of our success in the past and hope it continues in the future. Seniors have a responsibility and it is our job to help Angi out, that makes us a happy camp. We are looking forward to another tough match in the semi-final.”