Australia put World Cup campaign on track after dire Sri Lankan batting collapse

Australia 215 for 5 (Inglis 58, Marsh 52, Labuschagne 40, Maxwell 31*, Stoinis 20*, Madushanka 3-38) beat Sri Lanka 209 (Perera 78, Nissanka 61, Zampa 4-47, Cummins 2-32, Starc 2-43) by five wickets

Australia chased down Sri Lanka’s sub-par 209 with some ease, cantering to a five-wicket win in Lucknow to revive their flagging World Cup campaign. The result leaves Sri Lanka second-last on the table with three losses from three, and essentially needing only wins from hereon to stand a chance of making it to the semi-finals.

For Australia, it was a victory set up by a tenacious bowling effort, and then capped off by a chase exemplified by its clarity of thought.

But a collapse of astounding proportions saw them lose ten wickets for just 84 runs – the worst such collapse in World Cups since 2011, and Sri Lanka’s worst collapse since their inaugural World Cup game – as they were bundled for 209.

Marsh lofted the first ball of the chase, a fullish delivery on off from Lahiru Kumara, back over mid-off and he didn’t look back. Maheesh Theekshana, brought into the attack as early as the third over after Kumara had been hacked for 15 in his opening over, was taken for a pair of exquisite boundaries, and Marsh repeated the feat in Kumara’s next over. The worst, though, was reserved for Dunith Wellalage, who was lashed for three boundaries in his opening salvo.

But on a surface that Cummins had said he would have liked to have batted first on, this was a game won with the ball.

Sri Lanka’s partnerships tell the entire story. A substantial opening stand of 125, followed by a brief but industrious 32, and then… well, nothing. Indeed, beyond those two top-order efforts only two others passed double-digits, and that too by the barest of margins. Contrast that to Australia, who put up stands of 24, 0, 57, 77, 34 and an unbroken 23 on their way to victory.

The collapse is a worrying theme for Sri Lanka, who have now thrown away a promising position for the second game running – the fourth time in five games if you count the warm-up games. This game also highlighted what could happen if Mendis fails to fire; despite the opening pair of Nissanka and Kusal Perera putting on 125, Sri Lanka’s middle order failed to capitalise on the platform, going from 157 for 1 to 209 all out.

Nissanka had got runs against Pakistan but Perera was coming into this game nursing a recently recovered shoulder strain, and not much recent form behind him. But a lacklustre start from the Australia seamers meant that even though the Lankan openers weren’t exactly proficient in rotating the strike, there were enough boundary balls on offer to allay any pressure being built.

Together, the pair put on Sri Lanka’s best opening stand of the tournament, which would have had them eyeing a total in excess of 300, but no one could have predicted the extent of the collapse that followed.

While the start of Sri Lanka’s slide will nominally be attributed to Cummins for picking up both openers in the span of a couple overs, a large part of the credit should go to Warner whose catching provided the opening.

Either side of Cummins nipping one back and castling Perera, Warner held on to two high-difficulty chances in the deep. The first was to get rid of Nissanka, who mistimed a hook seemingly into the safety of the vacant midwicket region, only to see the patrolling Warner sprint across from deep square-leg and hold on to it on the slide.

He grabbed an even better one a couple of overs later, once more tearing to his left – from deep midwicket this time – making up an incredible amount of ground to gobble up a miscued slog sweep off Mendis. He then had to nurse some bruised kneecaps for his troubles as his forward tumble took out lumps from the Lucknow outfield, but it was well worth it as the Australians never looked back from thereon.

Zampa was the beneficiary of that second moment of Warner brilliance, and he struck once more an over later, trapping Sadeera Samarawickrama lbw with a slider shown to be barely clipping leg stump on umpire’s call. It was a marginal decision that left Samarawickrama shaking his head, but Australia will feel it evened out a not-out lbw call against Perera when he was on 24, which had they reviewed would have shown three reds.

It was around this time that the game was halted by a brief shower, followed by some heavy winds which blew off some scaffolding and adverstising hoardings from the stadium roof. When play continued, it was all Australia as Sri Lanka’s batters struggled to come to terms with the extra bit of zip in the surface following the rain.

Dhananjaya de Silva fell just two balls after the restart, chopping one on from Starc, while a period of concerted pressure saw Welllalage attempt an ill-advised single to mid-on, only for Cummins to throw down the stumps.

With the innings in freefall, a pair of Zampa googlies accounted for both Karunaratne and Theekshana, shortly before Starc returned to take out Kumara with an inch-perfect yorker. Charith Asalanka was the last man out, slicing a slog sweep off Maxwell.