 Australia confirm final berth by beating Sri Lanka
22nd Feb 2008 19:00 IST
Agencies
Sri Lanka's survival in the Tri-Series hung by a slender thread after they lost to world champions Australia by 24 runs in a rain-curtailed encounter at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today.
Chasing Australia's modest score of 184/7, the islanders were 77/4 in 29.3 overs when rain forced a premature end to the proceedings with Sri Lanka well behind under the Duckworth-Lewis method.
The two on-field umpires, Simon Taufel and Rudi Koertzen, waited for the rain to stop till the cut-off of 10.20 pm local time before calling off play. Since a minimum of 20 overs are required to constitute a game, Australia were declared winners and also got a bonus point.
Sri Lanka did well to restrict the powerful Australian line-up to a moderate total but their batsmen once again let them down.
Veteran Sanath Jayasuriya continued his poor run and was out first ball edging Stuart Clark to Ricky Ponting at second slip with the team yet to score a run.
It became 3/2 when Dilruwan Perera, included in place of Chamara Kapugedera, was adjudged in front off Stuart Clark for a single.
The trusted pair of Kumar Sangakkara and skipper Mahela Jayawardene tried to repair the damage patiently but the captain threw his wicket away when he played a lazy waft outside off-stump against Nathan Bracken to be caught behind.
It put enormous pressure on Sangakkara but when he miscued a pull off James Hopes to be caught by Andrew Symonds, the writing was very much on the wall.
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