it sponsors could provide longed-for relief last night as Sri Lanka
pulled off a jaw-dropping victory at the MCG in the first of this
oddly timed, three-game series.
Seemingly cooked by a run out and four wickets from debutant Xavier
Doherty, Sri Lanka were 133 runs shy of what had seemed a middling
target when their eighth wicket fell. Enter Angelo Mathews and Lasith
Malinga, whose death-or-glory hitting reaped a world record
ninth-wicket stand of 132 and took their team to the brink of a
historic win.
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Still, the drama wasn't over as Malinga, whose previous highest
one-day score was 16, was run out by a Steven Smith direct hit for 56
with the scores tied.
Muttiah Muralitharan, in his last game at the ground where he was
infamously no-balled 14 years ago, strode to the wicket, and after
Mathews could not get the last two balls of Michael Clarke's over
away, Test cricket's greatest wicket-taker calmly turned Shane Watson
to the fine-leg fence.
Only a small crowd will be able to lay claim to see it, but as the
majority of them were members of Melbourne 's loud and proud Sri
Lankan community, it is a story they will tell with gusto.
For an Australian team searching for ignition, this was a body blow.
They have now lost six times since their last win in any of the game's
three forms, a mini-slump that stretches back to July. No matter the
format, each new hiccup puffs English chests a little further.
Initially, there was a sense of resignation in the carefree hitting of
Mathews and Malinga, yet by the end, Mathews was lifting Mitchell
Johnson over the long-off rope and Malinga planting John Hastings deep
into the members' with pure cricket shots. None of which will stop
Clarke or his bowlers from believing they should have somehow stopped
it from happening.
The night had earlier seemed destined to be Doherty's, diving into the
spotlight with a brilliant one-handed stop and direct hit from mid-off
to run out a loafing Upal Tharanga. Then with Kumar Sangakkara and
Mahela Jayawardene taking the game away from the hosts with a 54-run
partnership in 10 overs, the left-arm spinner fired his second ball in
international cricket past the latter's defensive blade to win a
leg-before appeal.
A man once ranked the best batsman in the world is not a bad first
scalp in international cricket, and Doherty's next trick was to lure
Chamara Silva into a horrible slog to mid-on. When he bowled a
sweeping Sangakkara next ball, the Tasmanian had figures of 3-3 from
his first nine balls in this easy game of international cricket.
Johnson ripped through Thisara Perera - who earlier became the first
Sri Lankan to claim five wickets in an MCG one-day international - and
the visitors had slumped to 6-86 in the 19th over. It was 8-107 in the
26th and heading for an early night before Mathews and Malinga got the
trumpets and drums going again.
Mike Hussey's unbeaten 71 was emblematic of Australia's innings,
offering only a degree of cheer to observers who are using
limited-overs form as a guide to how team and individuals are shaping
before more weighty engagements.
The hosts failed to find the boundary for 24 overs through the middle
of their innings; only three overs went for 10 or more runs, and after
Brad Haddin's initial enterprise, just three fours were struck after
the 16th over. The contrast seemed stark when Sangakkara smote four
boundaries from his first 18 deliveries.
Hussey, coming off a double failure (three and nought) last week
against South Australia, should have been stumped before he'd scored
when he lunged forward and was beaten by a Muralitharan special that
Sangakkara also failed to get on top of. That he grafted away for more
than two hours thereafter provided welcome time at the crease, without
really answering any of the bigger questions about his immediate
future.
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