HAMBANTHOTA: Half-centuries from Kamil Mishara, Pawan Ratnayake and Ahan Wickramasinghe led Sri Lanka A to a resounding 4-wicket victory over New Zealand in the third ODI at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Cricket Stadium on Saturday.
The win sealed the three-match series 3-0 as they won the first two matches in equally dominant fashion, winning by 140 and 44 runs respectively.
Batting first in the recently concluded match, New Zealand amassed a mammoth total of 302/7 in 50 overs thanks to an unbeaten century from Muhammad Abbas and a blistering half-century from Matthew Boyle.
Abbas scored an unbeaten 110 off 112 balls with 7 fours and a six, while Boyle scored 85 off 80 balls with 12 fours. The duo put on 122 runs for the fourth wicket.
Apart from them, opener Rhys Mariu (28) and middle-order batsman Tim Pringle (20) contributed significantly to the Blackcaps’ total.
Vijayakanth Vyaskanth led the bowling for Sri Lanka A with 2 for 46 from his 10 overs, while Dislshan Madhushanka, Mohammed Shiraz, Traveen Mathew and Milan Ratnayake bagged a scalp each.
In turn, they easily chased down a tough target of 303 runs with 22 balls to spare, losing six wickets.
Sri Lanka A opener Kamil Mishara top scored with 83 off 81 balls with 6 fours and 5 sixes.
His efforts were supported by the middle-order duo of Pawan Ratnayake and Ahan Wickramasinghe who scored 77 off 62 balls and an unbeaten 64 off 52 balls respectively.
Wickramasinghe was adjudged man of the match for his unbeaten half-century in the run chase.
Simon Keane took 4 wickets for 54 runs in his 9.2 overs as New Zealand A bowler, Pringle took 2 wickets.