sports desk/

Marcus Stoinis’ incredible batting took Sri Lanka flying. Australia won by 7 wickets with 21 balls in hand, relying on the bat of Stoinis.

Australia’s two openers, David Warner and Aaron Finch, batted cautiously while chasing the target of 158 runs against Sri Lanka.

Warner returned to the team’s 26 runs in 4.1 overs. Then Finch made a pair of 34 runs off 26 balls with Mitchell Marsh. Mitchell Marsh returned with 18 runs off 17 balls.

Glenn Maxwell started batting at number three position. Collected 22 runs off 6 balls. Then he could not extend his innings due to injury. He returned to 23 runs by giving the catch on the boundary while hitting a six.

After that, Marcus Stoinis went on a rampage. He played an innings of 59 runs with the help of 4 boundaries and 6 sixes from 18 balls and became the man of the match. Australia won by 7 wickets with 21 balls in hand.

Former champion Sri Lanka lost the toss and batted first in Perth, Australia on Tuesday. Pathum Nishanka and Dhananjaya de Silva tried their best to bring the team back into the game after losing the wicket of opener Kushal Mendis in the second over of the innings. For the second wicket, they made a partnership of 69 runs off 58 balls.

After losing 5 wickets with a gap of only 45 runs, the Lankans were cornered. Dhananjaya De Silva scored 26 runs off 23 balls after giving up the catch. Young opener Nishanka returned after being run out by mistake. He scored 40 runs off 45 balls.

Vanuka Rajapakse, captain Dasun Shanaka and Wanendu Hasaranga could not capitalize after De Silva and Nishanka were dismissed. They got out by 7, 3 and 1 runs respectively.

After the fall of two wickets, Charith Asalanka went into bat in 11.3 overs and played till the last ball of the innings. Sri Lanka was able to score 157 runs for 6 wickets in the end with his innings of 38 runs off 25 balls.