De Silva shines in anchor role

Veteran Aravinda de Silva stroked an unbeaten 73 to lift Sri Lanka to 267 for seven wickets from 50 overs in the Morocco Cup One-day Interna...

Veteran Aravinda de Silva stroked an unbeaten 73 to lift Sri Lanka to 267 for seven wickets from 50 overs in the Morocco Cup One-day International here today.

The 37-year-old hero of Sri Lanka’s World Cup triumph in 1996 showed his 280-match experience by rotating the strike from one end to compile his 58th half-century.

	SCOREBOARD
Sri Lanka: S Jayasuriya c Pollock b Donald 49, M Atapattu lbw Kallis 35, K Sangakkara c Ontong b Klusener 41, A de Silva not out 73, M Jayawardene c Kirsten b Telemachus 32, C Vaas c Boje b Donald 18, U Chandana c&b Kallis 0, R Arnold run out 10, D Fernando not out 1; Extras: (lb-3, nb-2, w-3) 8 Total: (for 7 wkts, in 50 overs) 267 Fall of wickets: 1-84, 2-88, 3-146, 4-216, 5-246, 6-246, 7-263 Bowling: Pollock 10-0-44-0, Telemachus 10-0-59-1, Kallis 10-1-47-2, Donald 10-0-47-2, Klusener 7-0-43-1, Boje 3-0-24-0 Story continues below this ad

De Silva hit just four boundaries in his 84-ball knock, but his substantial contribution enabled Sri Lanka put up a fighting score after electing to take first strike.

Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasuriya had yesterday blamed the 28-run defeat to Pakistan on his batsmen’s inability to get big scores after settling in. The lessons were not learnt by the top order as the captain himself was dismissed for 49, Marvan Atapattu for 35, Kumar Sangakkara for 41 and Mahela Jayawardena for 32. Jayasuriya hammered two successive sixes over point off Roger Telemachus and pulled Pollock over square leg for a third six as Sri Lanka raced to 66 without loss by the 12th over. Jayasuriya and Atapattu put on 84 for the first wicket by the 17th over when both fell in the space of 10 deliveries. Atapattu was unlucky to be given out leg-before by umpire Simon Taufel when he missed a pull shot off Kallis. TV replays showed the ball missing the leg-stump.