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It was a fitting end to a long tour, and the Sri Lankans will be proud, if not content with their performance on their visit to the Oceanic country, with a very close loss to the hosts in the 3rd T20I in Queenstown on Saturday, April 8. The Kiwis have sealed the series 2-1 with one ball to spare, and in doing so, won in all three formats against the Asian champions.
Sri Lanka scored 182 runs while batting first courtesy of opener Kusal Mendis' 73 runs in 48 balls with 6 fours and 5 sixes. Apart from him, Pathum Nissanka (25) Kusal Perera (33) Dhananjaya de Silva (20) and skipper Dasun Shanaka (15) made valuable contributions, taking their side to a respectable total. For the Kiwis, Ben Lister took two wickets.
The hosts once again rode on the innings of their opener Tim Seifert, who scored 88 runs in 48 balls with 10 fours and three sixes to his name. It was a brilliant innings by the batters, but the Lankans clawed their way back into the game in the death overs, They conceded just 13 runs in the last three overs, and 10 in the last over, with Lahiru Kumara given the handles in the final over.
After Mark Chapman hit a six off Lahiru Kumara's first ball, he was dismissed with a score of 16 runs in 12 balls. In the next ball, James Neesham was run out on the third ball and in the fourth ball of the innings, Daryl Mitchell (15) was caught by Shanaka as the hosts lost three consecutive wickets.
But the win in the match or the series was not to be, with Adam Milne stealing a run on the fourth ball, while Rachin Ravindra managed to find the gap and ran two runs on the fifth ball, giving the team a four-wicket win with one ball remaining.
This will be a source of major disappointment for the Lankans, who lost six of the eight matches that they played against the Kiwis across all three formats. They lost the Test and ODI series 2-0 (one of the three ODIs was washed out) but came back well in the first of the T20Is with an impressive win in the Super Overs.
But consecutive losses in the last two matches of the series mean that the Lankans have also lost their series 2-1.
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