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Sri Lanka 355 for 6 (Mendis 78, Samarawickrama 73, Naseer 2-44) beat UAE 180 (Waseem 39, Aravind 39, Hasaranga 6-24)
On Monday, Sri Lanka’s top four saw him off and lined up the other bowlers. Mendis treated wristspinner Karthik Meiyappan with contempt, taking him for 36 off 18 balls. Having sussed out that Meiyappan was repeatedly dipping into his wrong’un and not threatening the stumps enough, Mendis attacked him with a variety of sweeps. Contrastingly, Hasaranga and Theekshana didn’t give up the stumps and didn’t give UAE’s batters as many chances to employ the sweep.
Before they had got together, Nissanka and Kartunaratne had also done their bit by countering the early-morning swing and seam movement. Karunaratne was the more fluent of the two openers and was responsible for six of the nine fours Sri Lanka had scored in the powerplay.
But Sri Lanka had to wait until the 48th over for their first six. Charith Asalanka injected greater urgency into the innings when he shanked Muhammad Jawadullah over wide long-on for six. Then in the next over, he launched Rohan Mustafa for another imposing six. Hasaranga joined the hitting spree in the final over, thumping Zahoor Khan for three fours off four balls.
Hasaranga then ran rings around UAE in their chase, though some of their players have played with – or against – Hasaranga during the inaugural ILT20. They struggled to pick his wrong’un in particular as the wristspinner went on to record his maiden five-wicket haul in ODI cricket.
“He [Hasaranga] is world-class, one of the best bowlers in the world right now,” Aravind said at his post-match press conference. “We did look at videos and tried to analyse what he does. But of course once you are playing it, it is a different story. Credit to him, he bowled really well today.”
Naseer aside, UAE captain Muhammad Waseem (39) and vice-captain Aravind (39) were the only batters to pass 30 in the chase.
On Monday, it was Hasaranga, the master, who bossed his protégé and UAE.
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