‘Hurricane’ Stonis wreaks havoc on hapless Sri Lanka – BY TREVINE RODRIGO IN MELBOURNE
Marcus Stonis single handedly destroyed Sri Lanka’s aspirations with a brutal batting performance that catapulted Australia back in contention to defend their T20 World Cup title.
The bouncy Perth track ince again proved to be Australia’s happy hunting ground against lesser teams unable to counter the speed and trajectory, but no issue for the Australian batsmen.
Stonis was a man on a mission bludgeoning a hapless Sri lanka attack to all parts in a memorable knock of 59 off 18 balls with 6 sixers and 4 fours.
Until he arrived at the crease, Sri Lanka appeared to be able to defend an under par total of 157 for 6 in their allotted overs.
But his arrival spelt doom for Sri Lanka as he scattered the bowling with disdain to record the fastest half century while reducing the feared Lankan spinners to less than ordinary in a spectacular assault.
Wanindu Hasarsnga De Silva and Maheesh Theeksheena took a hammering for the first time failing to do their homework on the bouncier pitch that had little turn or terrors.
Sri Lanka will take a lot of recovering after the Australian encounter. But should fare better on the other wickets in Australia. But the mental scarring will take some time to repair.
Hasarsnga in particular found himself in an embarrassing situation going wicketless and conceding 17 runs an over. It may help to get his mental mindset back and definitely gave him a much needed reality check.
Australia went into this game with a game plan centred on taming and gaining ascendency over Sri Lanka’s spin twins. They achieved that objective to perfection.
Sri Lanka opener Pathum Nissanka was a Lone sentinel when they were invited to bat as the rest apart from Charith Asalanka flailed in vain against treacherous bounce and pace by the feared Australian pace attack.
Sri Lanka found ‘Chin music’ was a lot different to the Baila and the Papare band as Australia applied a choker hold on their batsmen on the pacy, bouncy Perth track rated the fastest in world cricket.
Australia came with a plan to terrorise the diminutive Sri Lanka batters on the bouncy pacy Perth track, and the plan appeared to be the way to bounce back from a Kiwi thrashing.
It worked to their plan against a team inexperienced in the conditions, and struggling to work out a strategy that would give their bowlers a target they could defend. They executed those plans to near perfection.
