Australia registered a thumping 10-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the T20I series opener at Colombo on Tuesday (June 7) to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series.
Asked to bat first, Sri Lanka’s innings folded for a paltry 128 in 19.3 overs. The hosts were 100/2 after 12 overs but their middle and lower order fell like a pack of cards. Charith Asalanka was the top scorer with 38.
In reply, the visitors got over the line with 6 overs to spare as the duo of David Warner (70* off 44 balls) and skipper Aaron Finch (61* off 40 balls) put on an unbeaten 134-run stand for the opening wicket.
After the game, Warner said his text messages to opening partner Finch might have done the out-of-form white-ball skipper a world of good.
Prior to the first T20I against Sri Lanka, Finch was averaging 19.90 with a strike-rate of 107 in 21 innings across both white-ball formats, according to cricket.com.au.
Playing for KKR in the IPL 2022 season, the right-hander managed only 86 runs at an average of 17.20 in five matches.
Warner revealed post-match that the text messages sent to Finch during IPL may have “helped spark his return to form", as per the report.
“I just kept in touch with him (during the IPL), we always do," Warner said. “We always support each other as much as we can. If we see little things, we always try help each other out by dropping him a message."
Warner pointed out that Finch was moving into the line of the delivery too much, which was hindering his access to the ball.
“I just said to him not to walk out into the ball, let the ball actually do its work in the air. And if they want to bowl nice and full and you stay still and keep that leg stump line, you’re going to get full contact with the ball, and if it swings late, it’s going to go down leg.
“He was probably moving a little too much, he was walking straight into the line of the ball and was still moving at the time of the delivery, and when you’re a batter you don’t want to really do that unless you’re actually physically charging.
“For Finchy, it’s about keeping it simple and not moving too much around the crease. We saw that tonight (against Sri Lanka), he played some nice shots, he timed the ball well and when he’s nice and still, that’s when he’s at his best. He looked to hit everything down the ground (in the first T20), when the ball was in his area, he hit his slog sweeps which he is very good at… and you could just see the energy was a lot different with him running between wickets and he was up and about, and it was great to see," added Warner.
The second T20I between Sri Lanka and Australia will be played at the same venue on Wednesday (June 8).
(With IANS inputs)
