Australia into cricket tri-series final

MELBOURNE—Australia booked their place in the tri-series finals with a 24-run win over Sri Lanka in a rain-affected one-day match here on Friday.
The visitors’ gamble to bowl first — expecting the match to be shortened by the weather — looked to have paid off and they restricted Australia to just 184 for seven from their 50 overs.
However, the Sri Lankan batsmen again failed to rise to the challenge and they were 77 for four when rain did stop play after 29.3 overs, leaving them well short of the required 102 under the Duckworth-Lewis method.
The loss means Sri Lanka, having won just one of their six games in the tri-series, will have to win their last two matches to have any chance of reaching the finals. Sri Lanka’s Kumar Sangakkara was frustrated at the batting performance in the team’s seventh successive defeat to the world champions.
“We’ve made it quite difficult for ourselves over the whole tournament — our bowlers have done a great job right throughout but our batting has never clicked and let us down badly,” he said.
“We could be making the opposition looking better than they really are at the moment.”
Captain Ricky Ponting, who steered Australia to their fourth win in six tri-series matches, said he always believed his bowlers could do the job.
“Even though our total looked quite small, 184, we felt that if we got a couple of early wickets we’d have a good chance to apply some pressure through the middle of their innings,” he said. “We did a really good job of doing that.” Just one partnership was enough for Australia to win, with Mike Hussey (64 not out) and Michael Clarke (50) putting on almost half of the total with a fifth-wicket stand of 90.
Sri Lanka were always struggling in the chase after losing early wickets.
Veteran opener Sanath Jayasuriya, 38, finally appears to be showing his age and was the first to go, for a duck, caught by Ricky Ponting at second slip from the bowling of Stuart Clark.
Jayasuriya has just 46 runs in the series at 9.20 and was soon followed back to the pavilion by fellow opener Dilruwan Perera, who also fell to Clarke for one as the tourists slumped to three for two. Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene were once again called to the rescue and set about consolidating the innings, only for the latter to be caught behind off Nathan Bracken for 27.
When Sangakkara, aware of the impending rain and trying to lift the run rate, got a leading edge and was caught for 22 by Andrew Symonds off James Hopes, Sri Lanka’s hopes were all but gone.
And their fate was confirmed when the rain arrived minutes later. Once again, Australia’s bowlers had rescued their side after an indifferent batting performance. Clark, only playing because Brett Lee was being rested, did most of the damage with 2-8 from five overs.
The home side were 54 for four before Clarke and Hussey again came to the rescue, with disciplined bowling bringing relief to some of Australia’s star batsmen. Matthew Hayden’s poor series continued when he fell to Farveez Maharoof for 23, while Ponting’s run-drought continued when he was able to muster just 11 before being run out.—Agencies