Australia beat Sri Lanka, enter semis
Posted on Sep 20, 2007 at 13:27 | Updated Sep 20, 2007 at 16:39
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Tags: cricket, twenty20 world championship, australia
New Delhi: Australia entered the semi-finals of the Twenty20 World Championship defeating Sri Lanka by 10 wickets in their Group F Super Eight match at the Newlands in Cape Town on Thursday.
The One-Day world champions playing the match without their skipper Ricky Ponting, who has been ruled out of the tournament due to a hamstring strain, had no trouble in overhauling Sri Lanka’s total of 101 runs. The Baggy Greens reached the target with over nine overs to spare as their opening pair of Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist faced no problems unlike the Sri Lankan batsmen.
Hayden remained unbeaten on 58 that came off 38 balls with the help of seven fours and two sixes, Gilchrist scored 31 (4x4) off 24 balls.
Though Hayden and Gilcrist made a mincemeat of the Sri Lankan bowlers, but their work was made easy by the Aussie pace attack led by Man of the Match Stuart Clark who accounted for four opposing batsmen in his four overs giving away just 20 runs.
Earlier after being asked to bat first, Sri Lanka never got going against the Australian pacers and were bowled out for only 101 runs in 19.3 overs.
The total was the fifth lowest in the history of the Twenty20 Internationals and posed no problem for the marauding opening duo of Hayden and Gilchrist.
Sri Lanka started losing wickets from the third ball of the innings when Brett Lee had Sanath Jayasuriya trapped lbw for the batsman’s second consecutive duck of the tournament.
After that the Australians did not let go of the advantage and were helped to a large extent by some reckless shots by the Sri Lankan batsmen.
The Lankans crossed the 100-run mark only due to some sensible batting by the lower-order particularly Jehan Mubarak, Chaminda Vaas and Lasith Malinga all of whom crossed into the double figures.
Among the top six batsmen, it was only wicketkeeper/batsman Kumar Sangakkara who managed to cross the 10-run mark as the Aussie pacers kept up a tight line and length. The fielding, too, backed them up catching all that came their way.
While Clark was the main tormentor, Lee and Nathan Bracken took two wickets each with Shane Watson and Andrew Symonds sharing the remaining two.
Teams:
Australia: Adam Gilchrist (C, WK), Matthew Hayden, Brad Hodge, Andrew Symonds, Mike Hussey, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark.
Sri Lanka: Upul Tharanga, Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara (WK), Mahela Jayawardene (C), Chamara Silva, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Jehan Mubarak, Farveez Maharoof, Chaminda Vaas, Dilhara Fernando, Lasith Malinga.
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