3.11pm Sri Lanka cruise to the target with so much ease that they still had more than 15 overs to secure the bonus point. Eventually, it's an eight-wicket win with 153 balls remaining as Sri Lanka take the bonus point with them. A bad day for the hosts began with the toss and their dire situation kept worsening from there. In the end, 154 was nowhere near enough. Dhananja de Silva made his highest ODI score, Dickwella and Kusal Perera made handy contributions en route to a rather comfortable victory.
Presentation time.
Dhananjaya de Silva is the Man of the Match: "Low-scoring game so I wanted to attack in the first few overs. Gloomy condition so ball was moving around in the first few overs."
Upul Tharanga: "Good feeling. Everyone did really well. The bowlers stuck to the plan and bowled in the right areas. They knew the wicket will do something."
Graeme Cremer: " In losing the toss, we knew it was going to be tough. too many soft wickets. It was not a 150 wicket, if we could have grounded to 220, who knows? We have to come back better, we are better than this. The bowlers toiled hard."
Lakshitha: "Sri Lanka's plan should be to prepare a solid batting line up for the South Africa tour. And they should have a solid number 3 batsman for that. Kusal Mendis is the front running candidate but the team management keeps on playing fringe players in that position for some peculiar reason."
Could be the last over. Not even half the innings
END OF OVER:24 | 7 Runs | SL: 152/2 (3 runs required from 26 overs, RR: 6.33, RRR: 0.11)
- Kusal Mendis10 (7b)
- Dhananjaya de Silva77 (73b)
- Graeme Cremer5-0-25-0
- Tinashe Panyangara7-0-34-1
END OF OVER:23 | 5 Runs 1 Wkt | SL: 145/2 (10 runs required from 27 overs, RR: 6.30, RRR: 0.37)
- Kusal Mendis4 (3b)
- Dhananjaya de Silva76 (71b)
- Tinashe Panyangara7-0-34-1
- Graeme Cremer4-0-18-0
DC: "@Akseli Lovely bowling does not equal a RR of 7 on a track where you got bowled out for 150, luck or not. Just been totally outplayed in all departments."
Kusal Mendis.
N Dickwella c Mumba b Panyangara 41 (49m 38b 6x4 0x6) SR: 107.89
END OF OVER:22 | 3 Runs | SL: 140/1 (15 runs required from 28 overs, RR: 6.36, RRR: 0.53)
- Dhananjaya de Silva75 (70b)
- Niroshan Dickwella41 (36b)
- Graeme Cremer4-0-18-0
- Tinashe Panyangara6-0-29-0
Akseli: "I am still positive and I believe Zimbabwe will win 1 of their remaining 3 matches. Some lovely bowling with no luck. Some rash stupid shots that you can develop. Zimbabwe has many young guns who will get better quickly. They need to concentrate game after game. Forget about the loss and concentrate on what you're good at. Sooner than later all your practice will be useful. Trust in your methods, your principles. All we Zim supporters need is belief. We can get back to those golden ages!"
END OF OVER:21 | 10 Runs | SL: 137/1 (18 runs required from 29 overs, RR: 6.52, RRR: 0.62)
- Dhananjaya de Silva74 (66b)
- Niroshan Dickwella39 (34b)
- Tinashe Panyangara6-0-29-0
- Graeme Cremer3-0-15-0
