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When Classic Met Modern
Hundreds of contrasting styles from Maxwell and Sangakkara were Sunday's highlight.
At 37 years, with 14,000 ODI runs and a record third consecutive century in the World Cup, Kumar Sangakkara seemed ever as young and played a classic cricket innings. Contrast that to the blitzkrieg by Glenn Maxwell earlier in the day scoring a maiden century in just 51 balls to take Australia to 376.
An interesting aspect of the Sunday game between Australia and Sri Lanka at Sydney was the record-threatening run chase ended much closer than portrayed by the 64 run margin of victory for the hosts.
After the early exit of the openers, the Aussie innings was first built on the perfect partnership of skipper Michael Clarke and Steve Smith fifties, before both departed in quick succession.
Maxwell has had quite a few 80s and 90s over the past two years. The SCG innings was built with more caution and the three-figure mark is a monkey off his back. He was involved in a 160 run partnership with Shane Watson, whose return to form, with a quick fire half-century, I feel, must add cheer to the Aussie camp.
A word of praise for the disciplined bowling of Lasith Malinga who withstood the onslaught being the only Lankan bowler to go for less than six runs an over.
TREMENDOUS RUN CHASE
The Sri Lankan innings strutted with a wicket in the second over to bring the veteran pair of Dilshan and Sanga together for an entertaining century partnership where the opener took the lead. Dilshan hitting six fours in one Mitchell Johnson over not only broke the shackles by taking the run rate up but also gave impetus to the chase.
Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene have served Sri Lankan cricket with a lot of passion and the veterans showed they still had lot of fight in them. While Mahela was run out cheaply, Sanga ensured the scoring rate was ticking along and skipper Angelo Mathews with Dinesh Chandimal showed lot of grit to take on the mighty score set by the four time World champions.
In the end the difference between the two teams seemed to be the innings by Maxwell that gave healthy thrust to the total, which was to an extent matched by Chandimal's innings, that was cut short by injury.
Mitchell Starc was the most economical bowler of the day going for less than four an over and James Faulkner the most successful, however I wish to add here that the bowling by both teams has been below par in the overall perspective, considering the run making was made to look easier as the huge scores suggests.
In the other match at Napier fighting fifties from Samiullah Shenwari and Najibullah Zadran ensured that Afghanistan put up a respectable score of 186, compared to the more illustrious Test nations, against New Zealand in this World cup. Dan Vettori with four wickets for just 18 starred for the co-hosts in their fifth straight win.
Much like most matches in this edition of the World cup, the two games played on Sunday too brought to fore the resistance of the middle order in building the innings after the fall of early wickets. More on this another day in another column.
