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Cricket PlayersSL cruise to 105-run win over Oman
Three Sri Lankan batters scored fifty as the hosts posted 225, their second highest score in T20 World Cup history.
Kolkata: Mohammad Nadeem took 52 balls to become the oldest player to score a half-century at 40, beating the record of Sanath Jayasuriya but barring that Oman had nothing write home about as Sri Lanka crushed them by 105 runs in Pallekele on Thursday to push them closer to a group stage exit.
Oman optimistically opted to bowl and it was fine until Sri Lanka started freeing up and took a toll on some really ordinary bowling.
Captain Dasun Shanaka scored a 19-ball 50, rewriting his own record for the fastest T20 half-century for Sri Lanka, Kusal Mendis got to 61 in 45 balls and Pavan Rathnayake scored 60 in 28 balls, 24 of them to reach his fifty as Sri Lanka posted 225, their second highest score in T20 World Cup history.
Oman were never in any position to threaten the score as Sri Lanka finished with an encouraging net run rate of 3.125 ahead of their matches against Australia and Zimbabwe.
At the heart of this acceleration was a concerted batting effort that saw Sri Lanka slow down to just 21 runs in three overs after reaching 58/2 in the Powerplay before Wasim Ali kept overstepping and was taken apart for 17 runs.
The real damage was inflicted in the last five overs though, when Sri Lanka added an incredible 79 runs, mostly through Mendis and Shanaka. This was the fourth time in T20 World Cup history that there were three fifty plus scores in the same innings.
Oman were quickly reduced to 36/3 in the powerplay before Nadeem and Waseem Ali raised a 42-run stand for the fourth wicket and restored some respect to their innings. But once Ali was caught behind off Maheesh Theekshana—who took 2/11—the Oman innings fell apart. Nadeem stayed unbeaten on 53 off 56 balls but apart from being an individual statement of intent, it did nothing to help save Oman the blushes.
