Adelaide: Just a step away from clinching the title, Australia will be hoping to seal the issue on Tuesday when they take on a spirited Sri Lanka in the second match of the best-of-three finals of the cricket tri-series here.
Australia took a giant step towards winning Commonwealth Bank trophy when they defeated Sri Lanka by 15 runs in the high-scoring and thrilling first final of the tri-series at Brisbaneon Sunday.
And the hosts would be keen to keep the momentum going and wrap up the series, but for that too happen the home team would want a more disciplined performance from its bowlers who cut a sorry figure on Sunday against the Sri Lankan lower-middle order and tail-enders.
After posting 321 for six, largely built around David Warner’s career-best 163, the hosts got a scare with Nuwan Kulasekara (73) coming up with a blistering counter attacking innings and Sri Lankan tailenders producing some lusty hits before they fell short by 15 runs.
Even though they are 1-0 up in the three-game final, Australia will need to do some soul searching ahead of Tuesday’s match with skipper Michael Clarke too admitting that his bowlers continued to struggle in powerplay and death overs.
“Powerplay and death overs (bowling) have been an issue with us throughout. They (bowlers) are showing enough variations in the nets. But under pressure they are not able to execute it. We have to be better than that for we are the number one ranked team of the world,” a peeved Clarke had said after yesterday’s match.
Clarke is puzzled about the fact that the Australian bowlers, who show enough variety in the nets, lose their marbles once the opposition batsmen pile up pressure.
Ben Hilfenhaus and James Pattinson, two men around whom Australia’s success in the Test series was built over India this summer, together went for 95 runs in nine overs last night.
Australia have tried virtually every single quality fast bowler available in the present series but none of them, be it Brett Lee, Ryan Harris, Mitchell Starc or for that matter Hilfenhaus and Pattinson, have bowled economically. (PTI)