Sri Lanka’s Mahela Jayawardene is relishing the “freedom” that comes with opening the batting after another superlative display at the World Twenty20.
And he insists his appetite for runs is far from sated ahead of the islanders’ upcoming clash with Australia today.
The 32-year-old made an unbeaten 98 as Sri Lanka, last year’s losing finalists, began their second round Super Eights campaign with a crushing 57-run win over hosts the West Indies at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados, on Friday.
It was the stylish right-hander’s third big score in as many innings this tournament and left him with 279 runs at a colossal average of 139.5 after knocks of 81 against New Zealand and 100 against Zimbabwe.
Former captain Jayawardene has come late in his career to opening, although he has always been a top order batsman.
And for those who dismiss Twenty20 as a game for sloggers only, Jayawardene’s essentially orthodox approach provides evidence cricket’s fundamentals still hold good in all forms of the game. While the likes of other senior international batsmen such as Australia’s Ricky Ponting and India’s Sachin Tendulkar have opted out of international Twenty20 in a bid to extend their Test careers, Jayawardene is relishing the chance it is giving him to reinvigorate his game.
Jayawardene said he’d tweaked rather than transformed his game for Twenty20 cricket.
“I haven’t changed a lot but, having said that, I am playing a few more different shots than I am used to in one-day or Test cricket because of different tactics,” he said.Trevor Bayliss, the Sri Lanka coach, said of Jayawardene: “He is batting as well as everyone in the world knows he can bat like.”
AUSTRALIA VS INDIA
Australia captain Michael Clarke will be happy to stay in the pavilion while his team are batting for the rest of the World Twenty20 if it means more repeats of Friday’s thrashing of India.
Clarke’s men took a giant step toward the semi-finals with a thumping 49-run win over India in their opening second round Super Eights clash here at the Kensington Oval.
Australia’s total of 184 for five was built on an opening stand of 104 between man-of-the-match David Warner (72) and Shane Watson (54).
Although a top order batsman, Clarke decided others should go in ahead of him, even though he was listed at four, before Australia pacemen Dirk Nannes and Shaun Tait took six wickets between them as India were dismissed for 135.
Australia have never won either of the two previous World Twenty20s and at last year’s edition in England, were knocked out in the first round after losing to both the West Indies and Sri Lanka.
The Sri Lankans are Australia’s next opponents in the Super Eights when the teams return to Kensington today.
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