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Speedster Lasith Malinga made a huge impact straightaway having returned back into action for Sri Lanka having missed their first two matches. Yesterday, the slingy bowler made his comeback against Kenya at the R Premadasa Stadium in style by capturing his second hat-trick in World Cup matches. As a result, Kenya were blown away for a paltry 142 in 43.4 overs despite being at a decent 102 for 2 at one stage.
Lasith Malinga overall picked up as many as six wickets bowling 7.4 overs and conceding 38 runs. All his six wickets came bowling the fast inswinging yorkers which either got the batsman lbw or clean bowled! Most of the Kenyans instead of having their toes smashed by the white cricket ball wisely decided to get their stumps shattered. Poor Kenya were doing alright for their standards having won the toss and electing to bat first as they recovered from a poor start off 8 to 2. The Obuya brothers – Collins and David put up the country’s first 50-run stand of this tournament and were on course of converting that into a 100-run stand but their plans were spoilt by the Yorker King – the blonde headed Lasith Malinga.
Both Collins Obuya and David Obuya competed with each other in compiling the slowest fifty of this tournament. Collins Obuya scored 52 from 100 balls with 4 fours while his brother David Obuya scored his 51 in 106 balls with 3 fours. The rest of the batsmen were cleaned up by Malinga without any fuss. Interestingly both Muralitharan and Ajantha Mendis struggled to find wickets yet again in this tournament.
Lasith Malinga’s Hat-trick
The hat-trick of Malinga consisted of Tanmay Mishra who was lbw in the last ball of the 42nd over and also his 7th over. In the first two balls of the 44th over and also in his 8th over, Malinga cleaned up the stumps of Peter Ongondo and Shem Ngoche to finish a hat-trick. It was the second hat-trick of this edition of the World Cup, the first one was recorded only a day before this match by Kemar Roach of West Indies against Netherlands at Delhi. Malinga’s hat-trick was overall the 7th hat-trick in World Cup matches. Malinga himself has recorded two of these 7 hat-tricks! His first hat-trick came in the last World Cup against South Africa.
Needing just 143 for a win, Sri Lanka started their chase with a bang with Tillakaratne Dilshan trying to put each and every delivery to the boundary. Dilshan’s party was ended by a very good delivery from pacer Elijah Otieno who smashed his gloves for a caught behind to defeat a rash cut shot. Dilshan had smacked 44 from 30 balls with 8 fours in an opening stand of 72 in 8.2 overs. His partner Upul Tharanga eased to an unbeaten 67 from 59 balls with a dozen fours while Skipper Kumar Sangakkara got an unbeaten 27 from 24 balls as SL finished the match in the 19th over with as many as 188 balls to spare! Lasith Malinga got the Man of the Match for his six yorkers that ruined Kenya.