SL win fi rst home ODI series over Australia since 1992

Sri Lanka beat Australia by four runs in a tense one-day international that went down to the final ball in Colombo on Tuesday to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series. Put into bat, Sri Lanka’s top order failed to get going as they slumped to 34-3 but Charith Asalanka (110) and Dhananjaya de Silva (60) stitched together a 101-run partnership to give the hosts a respectable total of 258.

Asalanka came in and smashed 10 fours and a six for his maiden ODI century before Pat Cummins finally dismissed him at the death when the batsman was caught by skipper Aaron Finch as he tried to clear the deep midwicket boundary.

In response, Sri Lanka made the perfect start when Finch was dismissed for a duck but his opening partner David Warner looked well set to score his 19th ODI hundred before he fell agonisingly short.

Needing 19 off the final over, number 10 batsman Matthew Kuhnemann smashed three boundaries before Dasun Shanaka kept his nerve on the final ball to have him caught in the covers and see Sri Lanka over the line.

Brief scores:

Sri Lanka 258 all out (Asalanka 110, de Silva 60, Marsh 2-29, Cummins 2-37, Kuhnemann 2-56) beat Australia 254 all out (Warner 99, Cummins 35, Karunaratne 2-19, de Silva 2-39, Vandersay 2-40) by four runs