wow...SL scraped into finals after winning the must-win final game against RSA earlier this week.and now this - an upset win over Australia in the first of the best of 3 finals!!
SL batting fired on all cylinders (58 in 5.1 overs from Dilshan and Chamara Kapugedera towards the end) and then Aussie batting really ran into trouble with 5 run outs for Aus, 4 of them by Dilshan....SL had Aussies in trouble early on at 3 for 64 in the 15th over with" the dismissal of Adam Gilchrist for 26 silenced the home fans, but the run-outs of Ponting without facing a ball and Martyn for 1 shocked them." Martyn has been in great form... even in-form Hussey made only 16 today before...yes..you guessed it right..getting run out!!....Though the other man in decent form in ODIs, Katich and "Clarke produced a last-ditch 80 from 83 balls that made the score look respectable, Australia had been trying to catch up since giving up 88 runs in the final ten overs of the first innings."
If the run-outs were not an indication of the Aussies panicing ("Ponting and Katich ended up at the same end, Martyn was so far out from the direct hit he didn't bother sprinting or sliding his bat, Katich was sent back by Michael Clarke, and Hussey suffered in another mix-up. No decision was close."), the defeat definitely will put them under great pressure for sure as they run the risk of losing a VB series at home after so many years....last time they lost even 1 match in these 3-match finals series was in 9 years!!
"I didn't think we did too much wrong with the ball until the last five and then we had brain snaps with the batting," Ponting said. "We had five run-outs and a stumping with a few serious communication mix-ups and it cost us."
haha...will be amazing if Aussies lose...and that too to a beleagured SL, which got thumped 6-1 by India..though somehow they had lost the energy and spark in that series but seemed to have regained it with a couple of players atleast recently. SL has to just win 1 of the 2 matches left....seems plausible Ponting is going to face a lot of criticism in Aussie media if they lose this one....
Note: All quoted sentences are from the 2 linked Cricinfo articles.
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