Sri Lanka vs Australia ODI 1: Faulkner, Smith guides Australia to their first win on Sri Lanka tour

Australia got their first victory of their Tour of Sri Lanka in the first ODI at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo.

The Sri Lankan team management went into the game with as many as 6 spinners, with half of them being specialists, and by the time Australia came on to bat in the 2nd innings of the match the pitch had deteriorated further and was offering vicious turn to the spinners.

The Australian batsmen were bamboozled in these pitches in the Test series but they were up to the mark and negotiated the spinners a lot better than they did at the Test series.

The win wasn’t a walk in the park but it was comfortable enough for the Aussies. With half centuries from Steven Smith and Aaron Finch, the visitors chased down the total with 3 wickets and more than 3 overs remaining.

Earlier in the day, it was the Australian pacers who prevented the Sri Lankan top order from scoring big. Mitchell Starc carried on the terrific form from the Test series and went on to become the fastest bowler to reach 100 ODI wickets.

Starc, Faulkner star

Starc eventually finished with 3 wickets but the wrecker-in-chief was James Faulkner, who with his immaculate slower balls, foxed the batsmen time and again.

He delivered a double-wicket maiden in the mid-innings which stalled the Sri Lankans from finishing with a higher total. The all-rounder eventually finished with figures of 4/38.

Faulkner had persuaded Kusal Mendis into miscuing a pull in the 30th over and soon backed it up with the wicket of Angelo Mathews.

Starc took another quick wicket and the Sri Lankans had slipped from 124-2 to 132-5.

Chandimal plays a steady knock

Though Dinesh Chandimal played through the rest of the innings, he was unable to get Sri Lanka past the 250 mark which could have turned out to be a match-winning total.

Dinesh Chandimal scored 80* in the first ODI

Starc got rich dividends from bowling his customary full-length deliveries and each of his 3 wickets was the result of drawing the batsman forward. In the first over he knocked down Kusal Perera’s off stump, got Dhananjaya de Silva miscuing a pull shot to claim his 100th wicket, and then got Milinda Siriwardana to a similar delivery.

Starc did not concede a single boundary in his ten overs, while James Faulkner kept the batsmen at bay by giving away only 17 runs in his last 3 overs. He bowled his cutters to perfection and pitched the ball on a length on a consistent basis.

Sri Lanka’s top scorer was Dinesh Chandimal who continued his good form with the bat from the Tests and scored a patient 80. As wickets kept going at the other end, Chandimal scored most of his runs from ones and twos and didn’t hit a boundary in the first 46 balls. He scored a majority of his runs square of the wickets, playing sweeps and dabs.

The other notable contribution came from Kusal Mendis who scored a 95 ball 67. He was lucky on quite a few occasions. First, he was dropped on 14, then survived a close LBW shout batting on 25 and was almost run out twice.

However, unlike Chandimal, Mendis didn’t completely omit the big shots and hit two wonderful shots. One was a lofted straight drive off Moises Henriques and the other one was a legside flick off Faulkner.

Australians improving against spin

In the Australian innings, star batsman David Warner got out after scoring just 8 runs. Steve Smith came into bat next and the Aussie captain played the sheet anchor's role and played through the major part of the innings, but it was Aaron Finch who provided the early impetus and made quick ground in the early overs that provided the middle order the much-needed platform.

He hit his 2nd ball for a six and played shots when the fielding restrictions were in effect, even when the ball was misbehaving quite a bit. By the end of the 10th over, he had already struck seven fours and two sixes en route to a 36 ball 48.

Finch falls in controversial fashion, Smith takes control

Finch departed in controversial fashion when the debutant left-arm spinner Amila Aponso had one turn away from the bat at a fuller length. The ball ended up in the hands of the captain Angelo Mathews at slip but such was the turn on offer, the ball perhaps missed Finch’s bat and went to Mathews in slip position.

Despite the fall of Finch’s wicket, Smith carried on and played a captain’s knock. Though it was not one of the prettiest innings that Smith has played, he survived the alien conditions and played a key role in the chase. He was steady at the crease despite Aponso getting past his outside edge almost every over.

He played out the straighter deliveries and scored off the short ones. Smith got a life batting on 15 when Mathews failed to hold on to a catch in slip, which had deflected off the keeper’s pad.

Aponso was the most accurate of the Sri Lankan bowlers, though he had only one wicket to show for his efforts. Dilruwan Perera and Lakshan Sandakan came into their own in the later stages of the innings when the match was firmly in Australia’s grasp.

Lakshan Sandakan picked up two wickets

Dilruwan Perera had Smith caught at short leg, but by then, Smith had already taken the visitor’s total to 190. Perera took two more wickets towards the end of the innings and Lakshan Sandakan also added one more to his kitty.

Australia lost 4 wickets for 32 runs in the late stages of the game, but it was not enough to threaten the outcome of the match.