Zimbabwe bowled out for 118
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Only Hamilton Masakadza turned up for Zimbabwe. Sri Lanka attacked from every corner, with seam and spin, to strangle and harass the hosts who just about managed to get past 100, reports cricinfo website.
Only Masakadza managed to successfully combine aggressive intent with the required skill that the rain-reduced 26-over game demanded of the batsmen. It was Sri Lanka, led by Ajantha Mendis, who called all the shots in the bowler-friendly conditions.
Mendis bamboozled with his mystery against a team he has a pretty good record - 18 wickets from six games. Suraj Randiv troubled with his accuracy and Jeevan Mendis, the debutant legspinning allrounder, picked up a couple of wickets. Not that the seamers didn't sparkle.
Nuwan Kulasekara's turned in asphyxiating spell with the new ball with figures that read 3-0-7-0 and Dilhara Fernando, as ever, extracted bounce from short of a length to produce an equally tight spell. And it was Fernando who started the demolition job by removing Brendon Taylor.
The nature of Taylor's dismissal set the tone for Zimbabwe today: He stumbled out to the leg side, almost like a tailender, to a short-of-length delivery and had a lame fatal poke at it. It highlighted the urge to attack that the reduced game demanded of the hosts, but also perfectly caught the confusion in the mind of the way to go about it.
Zimbabwe also faltered in their strategy. Why was Greg Lamb, a batsman with a strike rate of about 41, sent in at No 3 in a 26-over game? The pitch wasn't so bad that they needed to stitch one end up. Lamb crawled to a 19-ball 10 which was neither here nor there and only piled pressure on Masakadza.
Zimbabwe 118 (Masakadza 62, Randiv 3-23) v Sri Lanka.
Only Masakadza managed to successfully combine aggressive intent with the required skill that the rain-reduced 26-over game demanded of the batsmen. It was Sri Lanka, led by Ajantha Mendis, who called all the shots in the bowler-friendly conditions.
Mendis bamboozled with his mystery against a team he has a pretty good record - 18 wickets from six games. Suraj Randiv troubled with his accuracy and Jeevan Mendis, the debutant legspinning allrounder, picked up a couple of wickets. Not that the seamers didn't sparkle.
Nuwan Kulasekara's turned in asphyxiating spell with the new ball with figures that read 3-0-7-0 and Dilhara Fernando, as ever, extracted bounce from short of a length to produce an equally tight spell. And it was Fernando who started the demolition job by removing Brendon Taylor.
The nature of Taylor's dismissal set the tone for Zimbabwe today: He stumbled out to the leg side, almost like a tailender, to a short-of-length delivery and had a lame fatal poke at it. It highlighted the urge to attack that the reduced game demanded of the hosts, but also perfectly caught the confusion in the mind of the way to go about it.
Zimbabwe also faltered in their strategy. Why was Greg Lamb, a batsman with a strike rate of about 41, sent in at No 3 in a 26-over game? The pitch wasn't so bad that they needed to stitch one end up. Lamb crawled to a 19-ball 10 which was neither here nor there and only piled pressure on Masakadza.
Zimbabwe 118 (Masakadza 62, Randiv 3-23) v Sri Lanka.