Dhananjaya de Silva’s maiden T20I fifty helps Sri Lanka post 128 vs Australia

Dhananjaya de Silva showed composure to stick around in the middle and scored his first T20I fifty to save some pride for his side.

Dhananjaya de Silva was dismissed for 62 in the last over of the innings © AFP

Sri Lanka have managed to post 128 for 9 in 20 overs in the last Twenty20 (T20I) against Australia at R. Premadasa stadium. Winning the toss, stand-in captain, Dinesh Chandimal won the toss and elected to bat but could not manage to stand tall in front of a disciplined bowling attack of Australia coupled with good fielding. Tillakaratne Dilshan, who is playing his last international match, was given guard of honour before the start of play by his teammates but could not score a big one as he was dismissed for 1 off a wide delivery from John Hastings. The pick of the bowlers was Adam Zampa who ended with three wickets in his 4 overs giving just 16 runs. Full Cricket Scorecard: Sri Lanka vs Australia 2nd T20I at Colombo

Australia will have to bat carefully as Sri Lanka will like to fight hard till the last ball of the match to level the series and give a fitting farewell to their veteran player, Dilshan. Sri Lanka would however be disappointed with their efforts with the bat as the pitch was expected to be good for batsmen but they did not apply themselves well on the surface. Sri Lanka lost the T20I series opener by a whopping margin of 85 runs with Glenn Maxwell going berserk with a thundering 145 runs off 65 balls.

Australia posted the highest T20I score, earlier held by Sri Lanka, as they registered 263 for 3 in the first T20I at Pallekele. Sri Lanka scored 178 for 9 but still never came close of causing an upset after Australia managed a mammoth score on board.

Sri Lanka failed in the first innings again, like they did in the first T20I but this time with the bat, as they were guilty of throwing their wickets cheaply. There were a lot of soft dismissals as Hastings started their downfall. James Faulkner and Zampa ran through their middle-order as only Dhananjaya de Silva showed composure to stick around in the middle. de Silva scored his first T20I fifty and managed to save some pride for his side.

Zampa, being the find of the tour for Australia, bowled in right areas and bowled a bit slow at times to outfox the batsmen. Zampa was successful in the last match of the tour as he ensured the hosts were not given any breathing space in the final T20I. ALSO READ: Dilshan fails on final international appearance

Kusal Perera played a vital cameo with a quickfire 22 but got out to a brilliant catch by Warner. Chandimal also failed as he went for 4. Chamara Kapugedara went for 7 while Kusal Mendis got dismissed for 5. Thisara Perera, Sri Lanka’s all-rounder, could not even open his account. This has been the story for the hosts as they never got going which resulted in their downfall.

Dilshan still has an outside chance to retire on a high if his teammates stop the resurgent Aussies who will be eager for a whitewash in the shortest format of the game. Dilshan is second-highest run-scorer in T20Is with 1,888 runs under his belt from 79 T20Is at an average of 28.60. Dilshan has scored a century in T20Is as well, a feat only achieved by one more Sri Lankan batsman — Mahela Jayawardene. Dilshan has also scored 13 T20I half-centuries which is only second to Virat Kohli who has scored 16.

Brief scores:

Sri Lanka 128 for 9 (Kusal Perera 22, Dhananjaya de Silva 62, Adam Zampa 3 for 16, James Faulkner 3 for 19) vs Australia.