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Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Malinga's yorkers decimate Kenya.

Sri Lanka stormed to a landslide nine-wicket win over Kenya in World Cup Group A in Colombo, inspired by Lasith Malinga's hat-trick.


The Kenyans batted longer than they had managed in either of their previous two innings in the tournament, but still buckled for a paltry 142 all out, with Malinga finishing with figures of six for 38.

The wicket balls verged on unplayable, full and straight deliveries with a hint of inswing to which the Kenyans had no answer.

Malinga took the second hat-trick in two days of World Cup action following Kemar Roach's effort against the Netherlands 24 hours prior - and became the only bowler in history to take two World Cup hat-tricks, having managed the feat in 2007 with four wickets in four balls against South Africa.

Sri Lanka set about the target with purpose and power, scoring at just shy of eight runs an over until they knocked off the total with 188 balls remaining.

Kenya had folded to totals of 69 and 112 in their previous two innings at the World Cup, and the decision of captain Jimmy Kamande to bat after winning the toss was either bravery or foolhardiness.

It took just 13 balls before both openers were gone. Nuwan Kulasekara trapped Maurice Ouma plumb in front of the stumps and Seren Waters was undone by a full ball from Malinga which hit the toe of his back foot.

The Obuya brothers, Collins and David, then came together at the crease and frustrated the Sri Lankans for the best part of 30 overs.

They rode their luck as Sri Lanka tested them with pace and then spin, with Collins surviving a leg-before appeal from Muttiah Muralitharan reviewed and then dismissed on height grounds, and David earning a reprieve from the referral system after challenging a leg-before decision against him from Ajantha Mendis.

But they fought hard and accumulated slowly as Kamande had requested before the toss, adding 94 runs together until Collins was clean-bowled by Malinga.

That precipitated a collapse, as the rest of the Kenyan line-up fell for a series of single-figure scores.

Steve Tikolo drilled a cut off Mathews to the man at point, while David Obuya's resistance fell with a heave to midwicket.

Kamande ran himself out needlessly, before Malinga took his fabulous hat-trick.

He ended Tanmay Mishra's misery with a yorker which pegged him leg-before from the final ball of the 42nd over, before clean bowling Peter Ongondo and Shem Ngoche with the first two balls of the 44th.

His accuracy let him down as he attempted to take a fourth consecutive wicket, but two balls later he rediscovered the line with a yorker to clean out Elijah Otieno and end the innings.

Upul Tharanga and Tillakaratne Dilshan got the Sri Lankan reply off to a roaring start, with the latter crashing boundaries with ease as Kamande rotated through his bowling options forlornly.

Sri Lanka were halfway to the total in just 8 overs when Otieno, his fifth bowler, removed Dilshan for an explosive innings of 44.

That brought the captain Sangakkara to the crease, however, and the pair continued apace to reach the total.

The duo took the batting powerplay early to leave spaces in the field, and Tharanga struck Ngoche's slow left-arm spin for 19 runs as the game drew to a close.

Sri Lanka rebounded from a disappointing defeat to Pakistan with an emphatic victory, though stiffer tests await, starting with Australia on Saturday.

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