Sri Lanka limited-overs captain Dasun Shanaka helped his team avoid a whitewash in the T20I series against Australia at home. His astonishing knock led Sri Lanka to a memorable win by 4 wickets to win in Pallekele.
Australia had batted first and put up 176/5 with Steve Smith making 37* and Marcus Stoinis making 38 while opener David Warner top-scored with 39 runs at the top. Maheesh Theekshana took 2/25 for Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka had a difficult start to their chase with Pathum Nissanka (27) and Charith Asalanka (26) scoring runs while other batters struggled to get going against disciplined Aussie bowling. Marcus Stoinis (2/8) and Josh Hazlewood (2/25) put Australian in the driver’s seat with them needing 59 runs in the last 18 balls.
However, Sri Lanka had captain Dasun Shanaka batting at 6* in 12 balls and then he flicked a switch and decimated the Australian bowling attack. The 18th over by Hazlewood went for 22 runs as Shanaka hit 2 fours and 2 sixes.
19th over by Jhye Richardson went for 18 runs with Shanaka hitting a six and a four. Kane Richardson kept things quiet for a while in the 20th over, but then Shanaka slammed him for two fours and one six helping Sri Lanka to an amazing win with 4 wickets in hand.
Shanaka remained unbeaten on 54 in 25 balls with 4 sixes and 5 fours and was also named Man of the Match for his effort. This was also the record for most runs scored in the last 3 overs to win a match in T20 cricket.
His knock amazed and wowed the cricket fraternity and they took to Twitter to praise his batting.
Here are the tweets:
