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Once again it's time to enjoy some quality cricket experience from the pearl of the indian ocean, Sri Lanka, where Sri Lanka and Australia plays all 3 formats of the game, this August. Two T20s, 5 ODIs & 3 Tests.

4 months after the Cricket world cup,it's the 1st International Cricket Tournament here in Sri Lanka.The 1st T20 between Australia & Sri Lanka (in Sri Lanka) & also this is Pallekele's(Sri Lankas latest International Cricket Ground) 1st T20 encounter too.

Since few days Kandy's weather was not in good condition (It wasn't that bad too). It was bit rainy throughout the week and gladly no heavy showers yet. Both teams had their practice sessions earlier this week and all were set by Saturday morning for a perfect T20 encounter between the two giants of world cricket.

Tilakaratne Dilshan leads the Sri Lankan team & Cameron White leads the Australian team.Both teams have played 4 T20s against each other earlier and both teams have won two matches each. Australia have lost 4 of their last 5 T20s while Sri Lanka have won their last 3 T20s.

Sri Lanka squad
DPMD Jayawardene, TM Dilshan*, LD Chandimal, KC Sangakkara†, AD Mathews, BMAJ Mendis, MDK Perera, KMDN Kulasekara, KTGD Prasad, HMRKB Herath, RAS Lakmal

Australia squad
CL White*, AJ Finch, BJ Haddin†, JW Hastings, DJ Hussey, MG Johnson, B Lee, SE Marsh, SNJ O'Keefe, JL Pattinson, SPD Smith, DA Warner, SR Watson

Cameron White won the toss and elected to field first. Mahela Jayawardene and TM Dilshan opend the Sri Lankan innings but they couldn't build up a big partnership as Mahela had to depart as Brett Lee bowled him for 11(11). Chandimal joined with Dilshan and both of them hammered few boundaries and finally Sri Lanka got a good start. Chandimal left the crease for 11(11) in an unfortunate way as he slipped towards the wicket and the final result was 'a hit wicket'.

Kumar Sangakkara came to the crease and joined with Dilshan. As two of the most experienced players in the Sri Lankan line up they started gathering runs to take Sri Lankan score to higher standards, but there were so many nail biting moments in running between wickets. At the end of 10th over Sri Lanka's score was 75/2.

Two of Sri Lankas best stroke players , left hand right hand combination managed to build up a partnership over 50 in no time and Sangakkara 30(22) left the crease by offering a catch to Cameron White (ball by Watson) when the score was 94.

At the 1st ball of the 15th over we experienced an amazing DILSCOOP right over the wicket keepers head by Tillakaratne Dilshan. And it was the 16th over where Dilshan started to play some uncommon shots and increased the run rate & also he scored his 50 in just 39 deliveries. Dilshan and Jeewan managed to build up a partnership of 50* in just 24 deliveries. Dilshan was the star of the Sri Lankan innings as he hammered each and every ball he faces at the end of the innings. Loads of 6s and 4s around the ground and Scored his 100 in just 55 balls. His final 50 runs came in just 16 deliveries. At the end Sri Lanka finished at 198/3 and sets up a target of 199 for the Aussies. Australia need 199 runs in 20 overs at 9.95 runs per over.

Australians started in a bit slow speed of scoring runs in the 1st two overs. But in the 3rd over Shane Watson started hitting a six and accelerated the scoring rate. Nuwan Kulasekara clean bowled him for 10(9) runs and Australia lost their 1st wicket when the score was 18/1. David Warner helped the Australians to gain some runs by hitting few boundaries but Sri Lankas new comer Dilruwan removed his partner Shaun Marsh 4(7) as an LBW decision and Australians were 40/2 at the end of the 5th over. Dilruwan managed to bowled David Hussey 6(8) in his 2nd over & he bowled the Australian captain in his 3rd over. A good sign for a good future for Sri Lanka Cricket. Australians were not in the game at any occasion since the beginning. Required rate was rising up rapidly in each and every over.

Sri Lankans sticked in to their plans and came across the middle overs fast using spin bowlers. At the end of 10 over Australian score card looked as 70/4 and they had to score 129 more in the last 10 overs to gain victory.

Few lucky chances went on Australia's way. But Australia was way out of the game as they had to score over 100 (RPO over 15) in the last 7 overs. They had to hit few boundaries in every over but Sri Lankan bowlers managed to pause them for less than 10 runs in every over. Haddin sacrificed his wicket as he tried to gather two runs where there wasn't two runs to get. Now there needs to be some fireworks if Aussies still expects a win. Warner(53) departed in the 16th over and it was all over for the Aussies as he was their last hope. Required rate was over 25 runs per over and in the final overs Australians gathered some runs through some boundaries but it was too late for them.

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