James Fiztpatrick
| cricket20
A 66 run partnership between Steven Smith and Brad Haddin help Australia reach 133-8 after they had been reduced to just 43-5 by Sri Lanka at the WACA in Perth.
The pair came together in the 10th over after they had lost 5 early wickets against an impressive Sri Lankan bowling attack that left the Aussies on the back foot for most of the innings.
Having won the toss the Aussies got off to a slow with Dilhara Fernando and Lasith Malinga denying openers; David Warner and skipper Michael Clarke any easy runs during the opening 3 overs.
With the pressure already mounting Fernando made the early breakthrough with the final ball of the third over thanks to an excellent catch by Thisara Perera at mid off to remove Warner (2).
Clarke (16) offered some resistant’s; smashing a delivery from Muttiah Muralitharan 97 meters over log off for a massive six before he was caught by Muralitharan an over later to give Perera his first wicket of the night.
Shane Watson (4), David Hussey (7) and Cameron White (8) quickly followed to leave a shell shocked Australia 43-5 after 10.1 over to put Sri Lanka completely in control of the game.
Despite the precarious position the Aussies fought back with Smith (34) and Haddin (35) smashing 6 fours and 2 sixes during a partnership which lasted 7 overs before Smith was stumped by Kumar Sangakkara to give Suraj Randiv the breakthrough.
Haddin followed 2 balls later as the Aussies counter attack was stalled by Randiv who picked up his third wicket of the evening to leave the home side 110-7 with only 2 overs remaing.
With the partnership broken Twenty20 international debutants John Hastings (15) and Clint McKay (6) came to the crease adding 23 valuable runs to give the home side a chance of snapping their current 3 game Twenty20 losing streak.
|
