Josh Hazlewood, David Warner guided Australia to a 10-wicket victory in the first T20I against Sri Lanka on Tuesday.
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Australia produced an all-round performance to beat Sri Lanka by 10 wickets in the first T20I at the R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo on Tuesday. Veteran fast bowler Josh Hazlewood starred with the bowl while David Warner and Aaron Finch combined well with the bat to take the visitors over the line. Australia, thus, lead the three-match series 1-0.
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Sri Lanka top-order batters — Pathum Nissanka (36), Danushka Gunathilaka (26) and Charith Asalanka (38) — gave the hosts a good start as they raced to 100 runs at the loss of two wickets in the first 12 overs after being asked to bat. However, Hazlewood then ran through the top-order to restrict the hosts to 128 runs. He returned figures of 4/16 and bowled at an impressive economy rate of 4 runs per over. Australia, meanwhile, chased down the target in 14 overs with openers Warner (70 not out) and captain Finch (61 not out) forging an unbeaten stand of 134 runs.
Hazlewood, who continued on his fine run after the IPL 2022, said that he has been working on his T20 game and results showed. “It’s obviously quite hot here, quite sweaty. Wicket is slow, but you can use that to your advantage. The new ball flew off the bat a little bit, and we dragged it back (length). Have been working hard on my T20 game. Playing a lot of it. And we saw that tonight,” Hazlewood said after the match.
“We’ve had a similar group for quite a period of time. The guys all know their roles. It’s just about giving them confidence. With the ball when Josh is bowling consistent lengths, we know how hard it is to face that. SL played well in the powerplay, and we were able to control the middle overs. Was nice to get a few, have a good partnership with Davey there. They bowled well in the first couple of overs. Theekshana has been giving us problems for a while now. But it was a good performance,” Finch said.
