Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka pulled off a heist against Australia by scoring 54 runs from 25 balls to win the last T20.
Sri Lanka, which has been going through turmoil in the last few months, wanted to bring some cheer to their millions of fans and they sure did that tonight.
The team, which was hammered in the first T20 by ten wickets, came back in the second match through Wanindu Hasaranga who picked up four wickets but the score put up by their batsmen was much too low to defend and Australia won that close game.
In tonight’s game too, Australia put up a above par 176 batting first and were in the driving seat as once again the Sri Lanka batsmen faltered and were 6 down in the 16th over and staring at a 3/0 white wash at home.
Fantastic game
But captain Shanaka had other ideas. They needed 59 runs off the last three overs and this is where Josh Hazlewood who had such a fantastic game till then erred and went for 22 runs as Shanaka put him to the sword. The inexperience of Jhye Richardson showed when he too leaked 18 runs and suddenly the whole of Sri Lanka believed they could pull this off. And Shanaka hit two fours and a six to seal the game in the last over to pull off a win which brought the packed crowd to its feet.
This young Sri Lanka team which has been in rebuilding process had done well in the last World Cup but the results did not show. They have match winners like Hasaranga, Bhanuka Rajapaksa and Dushmantha Chameera who all played in the IPL and have lots of experience. And with the captain firing at the right time and with little bit of luck for the top order, Sri Lanka can be a force to be reckoned with.
