Road Safety World Series 2022: Sanath Jayasuriya shines as Sri Lanka Legends thrash England Legends by 7 wickets – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Sri Lanka Legends rode on a superb bowling performance by Sanath Jayasuriya, who took a 4-wicket haul, to thrash England Legends by 7 wickets at the Green Park stadium in Kanpur on Tuesday to continue their winning run in the Road Safety World Series 2022. With this win, Tillakaratne Dilshan-led side climbed to the top of the points table with two wins in as many games.

Batting first against the Sri Lanka Legends, Ian Bell’s side was bundled out for a mere 78 in 19 overs as Jayasuriya returned with terrific figures of 3/4 from his quota of four overs and bowled two maiden overs as well.

England started off on a good note as Bell and wicketkeeper batter Phil Mustard put a good 25-run partnership for the first wicket, but Isuru Udana dismissed the latter on 14 runs in the last of the powerplay overs.

Following Mustard’s dismissal, England batters failed to cope up with Sri Lankan spin and their innings collapsed on just 78 runs with skipper Bell scoring the highest 15 runs. For the Lankans, Jayasuriya bagged 4 wickets, while Nuwan Kulasekara and Chaturanga de Silva took two wickets each. Udana and Jeevan Mendis picked a wicket each.

Notably, this was the lowest total in the tournament’s history. The previous lowest total record in the tournament was also held by England when they could only post 78 for the loss of 9 wickets in the previous edition against the same opposition.

Meanwhile, chasing a 79-run target, Sri Lanka Legends didn’t face much trouble as openers Tillakaratne Dilshan and Dilshan Munaweera formed a 24-run partnership for the first wicket to give their team a good start, while wicketkeeper-batter Upul Tharanga smashed 23 runs off 19 balls to lead their team to a comfortable 7-wicket victory in just 14.3 overs.

It was SL Legends’ second win in the tournament as they had won their opening match of RSWS on Sunday courtesy of Tillakaratne Dilshan’s brilliant century against Australia Legends.