Sri Lanka have won the toss in all important second T20I at Colombo and Lankans opted to bat first on a dry track which seemed to offer plenty of runs. But the party haven't started well for Lankans as Dilshan chased short and wide delivery to cut and in the end found the lonely slip. After an shell shocked silence from the crowd, Danjaya Desilva who walked to the crease at no.3 played beautiful shots along with perera and the pair tackled Starc with ease with free flowing boundaries, as Starc figures showed 0-20 an unusual scenario in the series so far.
Lankans are in a mood to use the power play to their fullest potential, but Faulkner struck with a wicket in his first over as perera played the shot early and could only found the leading edge, where Warner sprinted hard with a full length dive and caught it with ease. From there on it is the same story that had repeated throughout the limited overs series, no one had stayed longer with Desilva as Aussies bowled with discipline and fielded with an mindset of urgency.
In the middle overs it was Zampa who bowled with Control and varied the pace and picked up 3 crucial wickets in regular intervals as Lankans found it difficult even to rotate the strike. At the other end DeSilva fought hard to make the scorecard ticking, but Faulkner and Hastings continued to chip in with wickets to stop the acceleration. Although DeSilva played a lone Innings to put some runs on the board and at the end he departed on 62 with two balls to spare in the Innings as Lankans posted a respectable total of 128.
Later on Aussies started to chase a moderate score on a pitch where there are some runs and they were circumspect in the opening over which yielded couple of runs. After it's all the Maxwell show that started to pinch boundaries, as he continued his form where he left the other day. Warner too joined Maxi with his reverse sweeps and switch hits, where Maxi made it to look to easy with his unorthodoxly shots and bought up his fifty in 18 balls which was the fastest fifty by an Aussie in T20I’s.
Both batsmen made full use of powerplay which yielded 75 runs and the chase looked a couple of steps away as Maxi continued to pinch boundaries. When things looked all in control Maxi thought to go inside out against Prasanna, but he was early on the shot which took the inside edge and crashed on to the stumps as he ends another brilliance of knock of 66 from just 29 balls. While with only few runs to get it was Henriques who came at no.3, but he's stay at the crease lasted only for 3 balls as he tried to take on Pathirana missed all ends up the ball to kusal Perera.
After it was Warner who departed in the same over scored 25 off 24 top edged playing a sweep towards deep square, where perera hold on to the catch. At this period Lankans started to believe their is an outside chance of winning the match as they bowled quite overs through the middle overs and Faulkner's run-out was a result of that. But there was no scoreboard pressure on Aussie as they have amply time to chase remaining runs, although Dilshan made them panic with couple of breakthroughs in 15th and 17th over it was all over as Aussie made it with couple overs to spare.
At the end it was an outstanding knock from Maxwell and credit to Aussie bowlers who restricted Lankans to 128, but bit disappointment for Lankans for not finish on a high in Dilshan’s farewell.
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