Records break as birthday boy Sana celebrates

Defending champions Sri Lanka took a giant step towards qualifying into the final while outplaying Bangladesh by 158 runs in their six nation ACC Asia Cup limited overs tournament Super Four match played under lights at the National Stadium in Karachi on Monday.

Sri Lanka’s fourth successive victory in the tournament was fashioned by vice captain Kumar Sangakkara and veteran Sanath Jayasuriya with both scoring contrasting centuries to help their team pile up a massive 332 for 8 from their 50 overs after skipper Mahela Jayawardena had won the toss and elected to bat first.

Sri Lanka then put up an equally good performance on the field as they dismissed the opposition for 174 runs from 38.3 overs with Muttiah Muralitharan leading the way. The champion off spinner who is chasing Wasim Akram’s world record for the most number of wickets took a five wicket haul for the ninth time in his career.

Even then the match turned out to be a memorable one for Sanath Jayasuriya who celebrated his 39th birthday in the most spectacular manner. Vice captain Sangakkara of course struck back to back centuries but his performance was somewhat overshadowed by Jayasuriya’s trail blazing knock of 130 which also set up a number of individual and team records.

The dashing left hand opening batsman scored his fifth Asia Cup one hundred and became the sixth fastest ever to reach the three figure mark inclusive of five sixes and 14 boundaries. Jayasuriya also became the second oldest player to score a century after England’s Geoff Boycott who made 105 against Australia at the age of 39 years and 51 days at Sydney in 1976.

He was involved in another record with his partner Kumar Sangakkara as the pair put on the first double century opening stand in the Asia Cup while erasing the previous best of 191 runs between Jayasuriya himself and Avishka Gunawardena against Bangladesh at the R. Premadasa Stadium in 2004.

Vice captain Sangakkara took over the main role from there onward and joined in the fun with his third century in the current Asia Cup tournament.

The stylish left hander who made 101 against Bangladesh in a first round game in Lahore and 112 against Pakistan on Sunday at this same venue again batted with a great amount of authority to score a splendid 121.

Sangakkara collected his runs from 127 deliveries with one six and 16 boundaries and was sixth out with the total at 292 in the 45th over. Sri Lanka retained the same side that defeated Pakistan by 64 runs on Sunday.

Karachi, Monday