Nicholas Pooran's maiden century went in vain as Sri Lanka beat West Indies by 23 runs

Sri Lanka defeated West Indies by 23 runs in the 39th match of World Cup 2019. Despite dropping many catches Sri Lanka ended up on the winning side.

West Indies captain Jason Holder won the toss and elected to field first. But Sri Lanka didn’t let the pressure build on them as they notched up 93 run opening partnership, their highest in this World Cup. Sri Lanka put up a mammoth target on board as they scored 338-6 in 50 overs. Avishka Fernando scored his first ODI century and that to on a big stage.

Kusal Perera scored 64 runs before he was run-out by Sheldon Cottrell and Carlos Braithwaite. Lahiru Thirimanne remained unbeaten as he scored 45 runs off just 33 balls.

In reply, West Indies lost two early wickets in the match before Chris Gayle was dismissed for 35 runs. They again lost wickets at regular intervals before Nicholas Pooran and Fabien Allen build up a good partnership but Allen became a victim of an unfortunate run-out right after scoring a wonderful fifty. Allen scored 51 runs before Nicholas Pooran wrongly called a single and Allen had to go.

Pooran went on to score his maiden century but it went in vain as he ended up on the losing side. Pooran was dismissed by Angelo Mathews for 118 and interestingly he was bowling after two years and took the wicket off his very first ball. Lasith Malinga took three wickets from the 10 overs he bowled.

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