At Canberra on Tuesday, Glenn Maxwell smashed 39 off 25 balls as a dominant Australia thumped Sri Lanka by six wickets to win their third straight Twenty20 fixture and seal the series. With two matches to play, the world champions are unassailable with a 3-0 lead after taking the opening match by 20 runs and clinching the second match in a thrilling super over finish after it had ended in a tie. They had a slow start chasing 122 at Manuka Oval, losing two early wickets before Aaron Finch (35) and Glenn Maxwell steadied the ship.
Despite losing four wickets, they were able to reach their target with 19 balls to spare.
Mitchell Starc returned for the match and Ashton Agar and Daniel Sams were given an opportunity, with Aaron Finch praising the depth of the squad.
“It’s one of the things we’ve been trying to expose a little bit more by moving players around to find out more about how deep the squad is. “”And it’s looking really good at the moment.”
Having been sent into bat, Sri Lanka scored 17 off its first two overs to keep the series alive.
As a result, they were bowled out for 121 for six, including Dasun Shanaka’s 39 and Kane Richardson’s 3-21.
The team’s chances of pulling off a victory were hampered by star leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga testing positive for Covid-19 before the match and speedster Nuwan Thushara pulling up injured after bowling only seven balls.
“No positives today, yet another poor start for our team,” said Shanaka. “It’s been a major concern throughout this series. If we had that momentum from the start, we could have put more runs on the board. We were 20 to 30 runs short this time.”
