Cricket: Sri Lanka Step Up in Game 3 as Australia Fold

Sri Lanka moved up second place in the one day rankings when they trounced the top ranked Australians in game 3 of the five match series. Rebounding strongly after being crushed in the first two matches, the Sri Lankans posted an imposing total with Tharanga (111), Dilshan (55) and Sangakkara (49) providing the foundations for a much larger score. However, from 1/220 after 38 overs, Sri Lanka were held to 286 after Doug Bollinger took three quick wickets to pressure the middle and late order. Australia were never really in the hunt after losing Haddin, Watson and then Ponting in the early overs, although for a while Clarke and Mike Hussey combined nicely. However, Australia's batting depth was tested once Clarke fell, and they slid from 3/123 to be all out for 208, with Malinga finishing with the superb figures of 5/28.

Once again, Australia's recent Test weaknesses came to the fore in the one-day game, missing a belligerent innings from Watson, and unable to be papered over by wickets from the quicks. Australia's opening partnership continues to pose problems, with Brad Haddin struggling to 5 off 20 balls, leaving him with 24 runs from three innings. While Brett Lee, Bollinger and Mitchell Johnson combined for 7/134 off 29 overs, and Watson picked up two last-over wickets, the spinners Xavier Doherty, David Hussey and Steve Smith took 0/90 off 12 overs. Smith was only trusted with two overs, meaning he has bowled just five overs so far in the three matches. There must be strong consideration being given to bringing Shaun Marsh in to open, allowing Haddin to slide down to seventh in the batting order, in place of Smith. Although this would reduce Clarke's bowling options, it doesn't seem like there's much faith in Smith's bowling anyway. As Cameron White learnt, if you don't get bowled, you'd better be batting well. And Smith's scores just haven't been good enough, with the all-rounder/6th batsman debate still well and truly alive.

It seemed like Australia was cruising to a series win after the first two matches, but Sri Lanka will take a lot of  confidence from this match heading into the last two games in Colombo on Saturday and Monday, and the series is wide open again. And Sri Lanka will be well aware that winning the last two games will be a big dent in Australia's confidence heading into the Test series at the end of the month.