Australia made a spectacular comeback to bowl Sri Lanka out for 209 in their World Cup encounter on Monday, October 16, in Lucknow. Prior to it, Sri Lanka had lost their first nine wickets while only giving up 52 runs. Australia’s comeback was initiated when Pat Cummins (23-22) dismissed both Lankan openers following a century stand.
Australia broke the opening wicket stand and then chipped away at the opposition’s wickets to reduce their total to a ridiculously low level. After all, Sri Lanka would have expected a 300 or higher, given their debut performance. Sri Lanka was eliminated from the game by Mitchell Starc (2-43) and Adam Zampa (4-47), who went through the middle and lower order.
Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Perera decided to bat first, and they put up a fifty-run partnership to build the groundwork early and give Sri Lanka the best start to their innings. Similar to their performance against South Africa, Australia’s bowlers did not perform to their full potential in the first half of this innings. The bowling wasn’t consistent enough, despite a lot of turnover and some surface assistance for the quicks.
When Australia misused its review process and failed to look at an LBW call against Glenn Maxwell against Perera, it did not help their case. Cummins was forced to play defence after burning the first pitch of the inning for a review.
Given that both openers were cruising, Australia needed something exceptional to launch a comeback, and skipper Cummins provided it. Because of the extremely long square dimensions in the middle of the pitch, Nissanka’s short ball trick was successful as he top-edged a draw to deep square leg.
Australia had a real chance to turn the tide when Cummins got one to run through Perera’s slog off the inside edge shortly after. Unlike the Proteas encounter, Australia’s fielding and catching was fantastic, much like the Australia we’ve seen in prior World Cups.
Zampa had a poor start to the batting innings, but with two right-handers at his disposal, his second session was an amazing success because of Perera’s presence. Kusal Mendis was caught off guard by a spectacular leg break from David Warner, which left him flailing. Warner’s deep square leg allowed him to cover a lot of ground to his left. Australia, who was already well ahead, began to apply pressure to Sri Lanka’s batters, who could not hold off the onslaught. At first, it seemed difficult to get going, and wickets were dropping at a startling rate.
In the blink of an eye, Sri Lanka had gone from 157/1 to 166/4, and following a short rain delay, the final score was 177/4. From the looks of it, Sri Lanka would have preferred to take that time to recuperate. But as soon as the game resumed, wickets dropped quicker; the final six wickets fell for a mere 32 runs.
After Dhananjaya de Silva was clipped by Starc at stumps, Zampa and the left-arm bowler went through the middle and lower order. Maxwell returned to complete what was evidently a miserable batting display from Sri Lanka.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka 209 in 43.3 overs (Kusal Perera 78, Pathum Nissanka 61; Adam Zampa 4-47, Pat Cummins 2-32, Mitchell Starc 2-43) vs Australia