By Suneer Chowdhary
Sri Lanka won their second game of the World Cup while Kenya have been steamrolled in their third successive encounter.
Published: Mar 01, 2011, 08:26 PM (IST)
Edited: Mar 01, 2011, 08:26 PM (IST)
Upul Tharanga in action
By Suneer Chowdhary
Colombo: Mar 1, 2011
There wasn’t any doubt about the result. Nor was there too much doubt about the one-sided nature of the contest. So, when game ended in the 19th over, there was hardly a surprise that Sri Lanka had won their second game of the World Cup while Kenya had been steamrolled in their third successive encounter, making for a perfect advertisement for ICC’s latest ramble on having no more than ten sides in the World Cup.
Sri Lanka were never tested in their chase. Tillakaratne Dilshan decided to help himself to some free runs at the expense of some wayward bowling that already lacked penetration. There were eight shots to the fence from Dilshan in his knock of 44 (30 balls) before he perished in probably trying to hit every ball to the fence.
By that time, the Sri Lankans had got to 72 in 8.2 overs, two balls more than what New Zealand had taken to reach the same score against the same opponents. At the other end, Upul Tharanga was also in his elements and although not in the same league as Dilshan, did enough to get a quickfire 50. Kumar Sangakkara, who joined Tharanga at the fall of the first wicket got a not-out to his name as the Lankans quickly achieved the target in the 19th over.
Lasith Malinga was the star of the game though. Making a comeback to international cricket after missing the first couple of matches, Malinga ripped open the Kenyan middle-order with a spell that would have made life miserable for most batsmen – let alone the Associates.
He picked up an early wicket in the spell, and then followed it up with another one in his second. However, his most devastating spell of the game was his third in which he scalped four off six balls that included a hat-trick. There were deliveries that were probably sighted by the batsmen only after they thudded into their pads or the stumps and such was the ferocity of those yorkers, that he needed help from no other fielders – they were all bowled or lbw.
Malinga ended with figures of 6 for 38 and ensured that he also won the man of the match award for his effort.
Brief Scores: Kenya 142 all out in 43.4 overs (Collins Obuya 52, David Obuya 51; Lasith Malinga 6 for 38, Nuwan Kulasekera 1 for 18) lost to Sri Lanka 146/1 in 18.4 overs (Upul Tharanga 67*, T Dilshan 44, Elijah Otieno 1 for 26)
(Suneer is a Mumbai-based cricket writer and can be contacted at suneerchowdhary@gmail.com and Tweets here @suneerchowdhary)
Pictures © Getty Images
