Jayasuriya blasts 109, Lankans pile up 318 for 4

Port of Spain , Mar 21(UNI) Master blaster Sanath Jayasuriya's hit a blistering 87 ball-109 as Sri Lanka pulverised Bangladesh bowling to pile up a huge 318 for four in their crucial Group B league match of the World Cup at Queen's Park Oval here today.

Jayasuriya playing in his fifth and perhaps last world cup taught the Bangladesh bowlers a lesson as he sent them on a leather hunt hitting seven sixes and equal number of boundaries to script his 24 ODI century.

Bangladesh skipper Habibul Bashar won the toss and immediately invite Mahela Jayawardene to take first strike, hoping for Mashrafe Mortaza to repeat the sort of performance he had turned in against India.

Both sides named unchanged XI from their opening wins, Sri Lanka over Bermuda and Bangladesh over India.

The Lankans were however, better prepared even though Mortaza and new ball partner Syed Rasel managed to extract plenty of life from the pitch, using two slips to begin with.

Having played out the first couple of overs to gauge the life in the track, Jayasuriya and Upul Tharanga settled in and extracted a heavy price for anything wayward. The early spell of play was all for Bangladesh with Mortaza in particular managing to work up good bounce and swing that particularly tested Tharanga Once the early juice was gone, however, the balance swung towards the Lankans rapidly. Rasel is nowhere as quick as his partner and he was the one the two openers picked on. Jayasuriya cracked him to the square leg fence.

The next over was even more productive and Jayasuriya cracked Rasel for the first of his four sixes, hitting the left-arm seamer for one more. The 37-year-old then turned his attention to Abdur Razzak when Bashar brought spin on in the 11th over to try and curb the racing rate of scoring.

Not helping was some very poor out-cricket by the Bangladeshis, who wilted under the intensity. Tharanga was stranded mid-pitch when he was just three, but bowler Rasel missed all three stumps from short mid-on. Later, Jayawardene was let off twice, on 5 and 8 in team scores of 118 and 125.

Overall, it has been a far shoddier performance so far by Bangladesh, and the Sri Lankans have made the most of it.

The breakthrough finally came in the 16th over when Tharanga (26, 37b, 3 fours), cut Rafique uppishly and Aftab Ahmed held on to the chance at point well.

At the other end, however Jayasuriya was blazing away but first rain,which halted the game for 32 minutes and then a twisted knee forced him off the field when on 83 (77b, 6 fours, 4 sixes).and at that stage score was 137 for one.

There was no respite for the tigers as the lions from the Island were in a ruthless mood and and Jayawardane and Kumar Sangakara put up 65 runs in 10.3 overs before skipper was superbly caught by Aftab at long off and hardworking Sakib ul Hassan earned his first wicket.

Jayawardane in his knock of 46 which came off 70 balls hit two sixees one off Hassan and one off Razak and two boundaries.

Chamara Silva joined Sangakara and both took the score to 263, hitting 61 runs for the third wicket in 9.3 overs,the wicket keeper was finally caught by Tamim Iqbal off Syed Rasel. Sangakara made 56 off 55 balls hitting a six off Hassan and three boundaries.

Jayasuriya returned at this stage and showed his class again carting the bowlers all over the ground and then fire two succsessive six off Razzak to race to hundred.

The opener finally departed when he was caught by his counterpart Habib ul Bashar at backward point off bdul Razzak. Of Jayasuriya's seven six five came off Razzak's bowling.

C Silva remained unbeaten on 52(48balls,5x4,2x6).

In all Srilanka batsmen hit 12 six and 20 boundaries while setting a very stiff victory target of 319 for their rivals.

UNI