Sri Lanka would have thought of turning their fortunes around in the ODIs after losing both the Tests and would have banked on the absence of New Zealand's pace spearheads Tim Southee and Trent Boult. To add to that, Kane Williamson was ruled out with a knee niggle but Matt Henry rattled Sri Lanka with early strikes and reduced them to 27 for 5 within ten overs, before fifties from Milinda Siriwardana and Nuwan Kulasekara pushed the score past 150 and the visitors were eventually bowled out for 188 in 47 overs. Henry finished with 4 for 49 from his ten overs.
Sri Lanka opted to bat but New Zealand seized the advantage with Adam Milne and Henry using the early swing to trouble the top five batsmen, none of whom could reach double-figures. Henry took four of those wickets and finished with an opening spell of 7-1-26-4 which included the wickets of Lahiru Thirimanne and Angelo Mathews off consecutive balls in the eighth over. Siriwardana and Kulasekara gave Sri Lanka hopes of hauling the score past 200 with a seventh-wicket stand of 98 runs, but Siriwardana fell to a miscued a slog for 66 and Sri Lanka could add only 25 more runs after that.
Milne had started with a dangerous combination of precision and pace, regularly clocking in more than 145kmh, and had Danushka Gunathilaka caught behind in the third over even though New Zealand had to use a review after the umpire failed to pick the outside edge. It was a solo Henry show after that. He improvised on his initial wayward length and once Tillakaratne Dilshan top-edged him to midwicket, the pacer took three more in seven deliveries. Thirimanne had been unable to pick gaps and was on 1 off 18 when Henry swung the ball in to trap him lbw. He then pitched the next ball a tad shorter and extracted Mathew's outside edge with some outswing, to second slip where Tom Latham took a low catch.
With only four more runs to the score, Henry also had Dinesh Chandimal poke outside off for another catch to the slip cordon and Sri Lanka had lost half their side. Siriwardana, like he had done in Hamilton, tried to pull things back with an attacking innings. He first found a useful partner in Chamara Kapugedara to stall the fall of wickets for more than half an hour. While Siriwardana collected quick runs by using the pull effectively, Kapugedara defended patiently for most of his 24-ball stay before he gave a straightforward catch to cover to end the 38-run stand.
Kulasekara and Siriwardana combined at 65 for 6 to stage a comeback with the biggest partnership of the innings. As the balls became older, Siriwardana and Kulasekara hardly faced any troubles to rotate the strike and Siriwardana was also helped by debutant Henry Nicholls, who dropped the left-handed batsman on 10 at deep midwicket.
Kulasekara displayed his intent to gather boundaries right from the start. He dispatched Milne in the 23rd over for a six to the midwicket boundary and hammered more boundaries whenever there was an opportunity during his fourth ODI fifty, that included five sixes. A slog-sweep against Mitchell Santner and a cover drive drilled in consecutive overs frustrated New Zealand further.
Siriwardana, playing his ninth ODI, showed the maturity you would expect from a 30-year-old to marshall the stand and the innings. When New Zealand used the short ball against him, he swatted and pulled along the ground, and also unfurled some crunchy cover drives during his career-best score. Kulasekara nearly caught up with Siriwardana by bringing up his fifty with his fourth six but both batsmen were dismissed soon after in quick succession. Once Siriwardana was removed by Bracewell, Kulasekara edged one off Mitchell McClenaghan for Luke Ronchi to complete a stunning one-handed catch and after the last-wicket pair of Suranga Lakmal and Dushmantha Chameera vexed the hosts a little more, Bracewell finished things off to end with 3 for 37.
(espncricinfo)
