Sri Lanka cruise to big win against Canada

Sri Lanka started their world cup campaign with a bang as they amassed a mammoth 332 for the loss of 7 wickets against a hapless Canada. The match was played at the newly built Mahinda Rajapaksha International Cricket Stadium in Hambantota.

Watch Highlights

The settings were as Sri Lankan as they could be with strong breeze blowing across the ground and a dry wicket on offer. Kumar Sangakkara won the toss accompanied by a big roar from the crowd and he elected to bat first without any hesitation. It was important that their batsmen spent as much time as possible in the middle and Dilshan, Jayawardene and Sangakkara did just that. They were also helped by some poor bowling and fielding performances.

The outfield of the ground was so slow that even the most powerful ground strokes were stopped just inside the boundary and the 2s and 3s were the order of the day and this is why a total of 330 runs was one the Sri Lankan team could be proud of!
Major contributors to this total were Jayawardene and Sangakkara who was dropped twice on 12 and 48. Jayawardene too survived some scares as he survived reviews twice from Canada captain Ashish Bagai, who was twice convinced he had his man out caught behind. On both occasions the appeal was spontaneous and exuberant but the TV replays suggested little. With Snicko still not available and HotSpot ruled out due to financial bickering the UDRS is limited and Bagai felt aggrieved.

Sangakkara though, seems to be going through some jinx with the three figure mark eluding him yet again as he was caught by Davison off his own bowling. Sangakkara hit his last century in June 2008 and has now gone 60 matches without a hundred, despite scoring heavily over the period.

Heat and the running needed to score runs taking toll of the batsmen was evident as Jayawardene crawled his run that brought up his century. What spoke volumes about this effort was that it was the fourth fastest in World Cup history and beat Sanath Jayasuriya’s 85-ball effort against Bangladesh.

Wickets tumbled and tempers frayed in the batting Powerplay that followed with Angelo Mathews getting into a needless confrontation with Canada’s Harvir Baidwan.

Canada in return had little to offer with the entire team scuttling out for 122 in 36.5 overs and Sri Lanka won comfortably by 210 runs. Sri Lankan seamers Kulasekara and Perera picked up 3 wickets each.

This was the seventh biggest victory in the World Cup history. What Dilshan had to say pretty much summed up the mood, “We are happy with this, very comfortable win, very important first match, batting department did a great job.