Sri Lanka suffer 5 wicket defeat against Australia

Colombo (News1st) - Sri Lanka suffered their second defeat in the run-up to the ICC world cup yesterday as they were beaten by Australia, in a warm-up match. Winning the toss Sri Lankan skipper Dimuth Karunaratne opted to take first lease of the wicket. Despite a strong start an all too familiar middle-order collapse forced Sri Lanka to settle for a score of 239/8 in their allotted 50 overs. Opener Lahiru Thirimanne top scored for Sri Lanka with 56 while Dananjaya de Silva chipped in with 43 towards the end of the innings. Australia who commenced their run chase had a brief scare as they lost skipper Aaron Finch for just 11 runs in the 4th over. However, some solid middle order performances together with a sensible knock of 89 from Usman Khawaja ensured that Australia crossed the target in the 45th over with 5 wickets to spare. Jeffrey Vandersay picked up 2 wickets for Sri Lanka.