Hasaranga, Theekshana script Sri Lanka’s victory over Ireland

Sri Lanka make a winning start to their T20 World Cup campaign but they had to battle hard to overcome Ireland in Colombo. The co-hosts are back in action on Thursday with Oman being their opponents in Pallekele. Ireland have their task cut out to make the top two in Group B and it only gets harder with Australia next up in Colombo on Wednesday.

On a surface that gripped and turned, Sri Lanka’s batters lumbered their way to 163 for 6, an innings that felt sluggish for the better part before Kamindu Mendis exploded at the death to breathe life into it. Ireland threatened to run the islanders close in the chase for a brief while but ultimately came up short by 20 runs, unable to force the pace against Sri Lanka’s world-class spin attack, with Maheesh Theekshana adding a three-fer of his own to complement Hasaranga’s ever-reliable efforts.

Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka: “We’re really happy with our all round performance tonight. At the start we struggled. I actually thought the toss would play a crucial part but it helped us as the pitch slowed down a bit. Wanindu Hasaranga hurt his hamstring but we’re hoping it wasn’t too bad.”

Ireland captain Paul Stirling: “We thought they got 15-20 too many. At the start of the day we’d be happy chasing 160. When the match was on the line we weren’t as clinical as we wanted to be. A little bit sloppy in the field which is disappointing.

“Experience told today. The Sri Lanka team at the end of both innings, that was the difference really. Those 20 runs – they defended well at the back end. We had plenty of wickets in hand, thought we were in good positions the whole way through and they really upped the ante and put the squeeze on.”

“You can sit back and reflect and pick those 20 runs out of anywhere. At the end of the day, they were 20 runs better than us throughout the whole match. I think spin is going to be a challenge in this competition. Certainly, it wasn’t coming onto the bat as much as it could have been. Spin is going to be dominating phases of this game.”

Brief Scores: Sri Lanka 163/6 in 20 overs (Kusal Mendis 56, Kamindu Mendis 44; George Dockrell 2-20) beat Ireland 143 in 19.5 overs (Harry Tector 40; Wanindu Hasaranga 3-25, Maheesh Theekshana 3-23) by 20 runs