Fletcher and bowlers crush mediocre Sri Lanka

The make-shift opener, Andre Fletcher made a career-best 84 to help West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 7 wickets in their Super 10: Group 1 encounter of the ICC World T20 2016 played at Bangalore on Sunday night.

After restricting the pathetic Lankan batting unit to only 122, West Indies were guided to victory by Fletcher amidst some excellent spin bowling by the Sri Lankans to top the group and secure their 2^nd victory.

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A hamstring injury to the dangerous Chris Gayle restricted him from opening the innings. The newly-formed openers, Fletcher and Johnson Charles made a whirlwind start to the chase. Leg-spinner Jeffrey Vandersay making his World T20 debut in place of injured Lasith Malinga extracted spin right away to trouble the West Indians. He made Charles heave to the leg-side boundary and he picked out the fielder at deep mid-wicket but Kapgedara dropped a sitter.

Vandersay made the initial breakthrough when Charles chopped one onto the stumps as the Lankan spinners came to the party. Marlon Samuels consumed 12 deliveries for his 3 runs before he charged down a Siriwardana delivery and got himself stumped. Ramdin made a 13-ball 5 before he was castled by Siriwardana as Sri Lanka came back to the game with an outside chance of winning yet the spinners ran out of overs.

Vandersay ended with excellent figures of 4 for 11 from his 4 overs but Fletcher had other ideas as he made Lankan bowlers look ordinary alongside Andre Russell as the Windies cruised to victory with 10 balls remaining. The right-handed Fletcher remained unbeaten on 84 off 64 balls smashing 6 fours and 5 towering sixes.

 Sri Lanka vs West Indies – Match Highlights 

Earlier after being asked to bat first, Sri Lanka started off aggressively with Tillakarathne Dilshan smashing a six off the first delivery he faced and followed it up with another boundary. West Indies skipper used his 4th bowler in the 4th over. Seamer Carlos Brathwaite struck Dilshan on his back pad on the very first delivery and was given out by umpire Johan Cloete but the replays conclusively showed it was clearly missing the leg-stump.

Dinesh Chandimal after playing a slow 18-ball 16 got himself run-out by attempting a single to extra cover which was not available. The Lankans collected 41 runs in the Powerplay but soon after the fielding restrictions were done, Thirimanne’s struggle ended when he sliced a Samuel Badree delivery straight to cover point.

The Windies continued to keep a leash on the Lankan run-rate with excellent bowling. Badree struck twice in his final over and the ninth over in the innings as Kapugedara came down the track and played a nothing of a shot only to be stumped while Siriwardana nicked it to first slip in the third ball he faced after being beaten in the first two.

At 47 for 5, the Josephian Mafia, Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perera came together and constructed a valuable 44-run stand under trying circumstances. Mathews’ snail-paced 32-ball 20 was ended by Dwayne Bravo when he top-edged a loopy slow full-toss to the keeper.

Perera bludgeoned 16 runs off Brathwaite in the 18th over to help Sri Lanka post a below-par score of 122. The sensible 29-ball knock of 40 by Perera ended in the penultimate over as he was the only batsmen to get going throughout the innings. None of the lower order batsmen made a significant contribution to the score.

The Lankans struggled heavily on the lack of pace on the surface as the Caribbean men cleverly mixed up the pace of thedeliveries efficiently. The spin duo of Benn and Badree gave away only 25 runs off their 8 overs and picking up 3 wickets.