Australia have overcome the loss of captain Michael Clarke and averted disaster by squaring the one-day series against Sri Lanka at 2-2 with a tough 32-run victory at Bellerive.
An unbeaten century from Phil Hughes and three wickets apiece from Xavier Doherty and Moises Henriques have helped the home side to a fighting win after they were down 2-1 in the series.
Without their skipper and best player due to an ankle injury and less than a week after being bowled out for 74, a disastrous 3-1 loss on home soil beckoned.
But Hughes cracked 138 from 154 balls, his highest ODI score, to anchor Australia’s 5-247 and set up a daunting run chase for Sri Lanka.
Doherty (3-21) then removed three of the tourists’ top four and Henriques (3-32) made crucial breakthroughs to drag Australia off the canvas.
The Lankans had cruised to 0-57 before losing 4-20 to all but crash out of the decider.
They were 1-57 when Mahela Jayawardene, in his last match as captain, was caught for 38 from 39 balls attempting to chip Doherty over the infield.
Doherty struck again in his next over when he had Lahiru Thirimanne (1 from 10) caught in the deep at 2-62.
When Henriques had Tillakaratne Dilshan (19 from 48) caught behind it was 3-71 and Doherty bowled Dinesh Chandimal (6 from 10) for 4-77.
A patient 79-run stand between Angelo Mathews (67 from 79) and Jeevan Mendis (26 from 40) for the sixth wicket would have brough flashbacks of Mathews’ matchwinning performance at the MCG in 2010.
But Henriques bowled Mendis in the 44th over at 6-187 and Mitchell Johnson (2-45) removed Mathews without a run being added to have the home side in sight of victory.
Earlier, Hughes’ second hundred of the series included 13 fours and a six, David Hussey the home side’s next best with 34 from 39.
Clarke failed to recover from an ankle injury he suffered in a training drill on Tuesday, his place taken by spinning allrounder Glenn Maxwell in a revamped batting order and George Bailey captaining Australia for the first time on his home ground.
Clarke told the Nine Network X-rays had cleared him of any break but he could need an MRI scan.
He has time on his side with the first of Australia’s five one-day matches against the West Indies in Perth still nine days away.
Tuesday’s match was being played in front of 8102 fans on a day it was announced a $30 million redevelopment of the ground would boost the capacity from 15,000 to 19,500.
Sri Lankan swing bowler Nuwan Kulasekara was named man of the series for his 11 wickets.
Man of the match Hughes said the Australians had shown plenty of fight in grinding out the win.
“We would have loved to have won it but the position we were in when we came here, we were really behind in the series,” he said.
“To bounce back here like we did tonight, it showed fight from all the boys and that’s a really pleasing thing to show that fight.”
Jayawardene was ruing the series that got away after the fourth game in Sydney was washed out when Australia had made just 9-222.
“It’s tough to get over something like this but we’ve played some good cricket so we can take something very positive from the entire series,” he said.
“Sydney was disappointing but even here today was a bit disappointing because I think if you’re chasing anything under 250 it’s very much gettable with the new field restrictions.”
Vivek
Guest
Agree 100%, Khawaja, Hughes and Warner will be our champion batsman.
Vivek
Guest
Selectors need to pick Khawaja based on the fact that he will be long term test star if given half a chance, a good example of short term deicsions would be to pick the batsman who scores well in the SA vs Vic shield game at Adelaide, sure you can score a 100 in Adealide but does that mean you will score in England, i don't htink so
Vivek
Guest
Agree Bearfax we need both Hughes and Khawaja in the team and if only the selectors can give Khawaja half the chances given to some other guys we can have 2 world beaters in the team.
aggregated drupe
Roar Pro
Khawaja ,Hughes, and Warner will lead our batting for the next decade.
Bearfax
Guest
I think everyone is forgetting Hughes has just started his international career. He's not a world beater...yet. No batsman I know of except maybe Mark Taylor, started his career scoring consistently. You cant expect Hughes to be playing like Ponting, Hussey or Clarke at this stage and maintaining a consistent decent score in most innings. It rarely happens that way. Hughes will continue to develop and I suspect he will become one of Australia,s all time best players, but he's still a kid learning his trade. Guys I can understand the present selectors expecting miracles...they're dunces. But the people on these forums are much more insightful. Like Warner, Hughes will have his bad times and his good times but as the years progress his bad times will become frarer. Wish the selectors could see that in Khawaja too instead of choosing the latest average cricketer who just happened to opportunistically make a few decent scores before selections were made. Just plain dumb
matt h
Guest
I think re Lyon they are deliberately keeping him away from the shorter formats so that he doesn;t give into the temptation to become a flat darter. I'm ok with that. Doherty is a pretty solid performer in ODI's
Renegade
Guest
Yep, totally agree. In a few years time he will be the best batsmen in the country, maybe even the world. At 24 now, he still has over a decade to leave his mark on the sport.
Frankie Hughes
Guest
Hardly say that Phil is the new Marcus North. His Ryobi form showed he is very consistent. I have no doubt he will string together a run of scores.
Red Kev
Guest
As I said in the commentary last night, Hughes is starting to look like Marcus North (who in the 2009 Ashes returned the following innings list: 125*, DNB, 0, 6, 12, 96, 110, DNB, 8, 10). Hughes definitely deserves to play the WI series (which he will) based on this series. I hope he does well because he and Khawaja are the most talented batsmen under 30 we have in Australia. We need both to succeed. But 257 from 5 innings would look better as 1 century and 3 fifties instead of 112, 3, 3, 1, 138*
Frankie Hughes
Guest
Phil deserves his place. His list A average is brilliant. If you're averaging 50 and can't get a gig something isn't right.
Brendon
Guest
Come on admit it, he's looked ok, when he failed so did the whole team, and they he got two beautiful centuries, who would you put in the team before him that's not currently playing?
Frankie Hughes
Guest
Your point being? Warner's have 50-60 innings of the odd decent innings and plenty of low scores. Hughes has as many ODI hundreds as Warner is a considerably less innings.
Jason
Guest
Steady on. He's had 3 single figure scores in 5 innings.
Frankie Hughes
Guest
I never doubted that Phil Hughes would succeed at ODI cricket. The boy is so talented and has all the shots. I think he should be number 3 in Tests and ODIs. He seems to be bedding in there. Now for the West Indians! I can see Phil enjoying facing their bowlers.
Bearfax
Guest
Quite right Brendon. Hughes hopefully has the monkey off his back like Warner. Other players seem blessed with positive reports yet Doherty before the last match had done nothing but score some runs with Starc. Maxwell who had failed in his first two matches with scores of 5 and 8 and no wickets, was given another chance and scored 9 runs and no wickets. Bailey and Hussey have been given carte blanche but neither have done much in this series especially after the first match. Wade has done OK. Clarke has offered little because he's been injured. Without Hughes and Warner, Australias batting was common place. Begs the question. What does Khawaja need to do to get a fair go.
Red Kev
Guest
I had seen very little of Henriques before this year (one Ryobi Cup game and a few T20s) and while I still don’t rate him that highly (i.e. he isn’t ready for tests yet so please don’t select him, and he’s still behind McDonald and Christian as an allrounder in my estimation) what I did like is that he was composed. He came in to bat and instead of wasting time trying to belt the ball like Maxwell he concentrated in putting bat on ball and getting a single to put Hughes on strike. Then when he was given the ball, especially at the end he tried to keep it at the stumps (simple mantra in a slog fest, if you miss I hit). He showed a level of thinking in his cricket whereas Maxwell was shown up as lacking it (the guy can field, and well, but that’s it).
Brendon
Guest
I've seen a fair few people on here knocking Hughes, he can't play a swinging ball, he doesn't move his feet, play doolan, play finch blah blah blah. I was screaming for him to be out of the team not one year ago, but from the moment he has come back he's look a different cricketer. Yep he got out cheap when the ball was moving, but the ball from Kulasekera in the second test was an absolute cracker and there isn't another cricketer bar Clarke and Warner in the country that would have got their bat on that. 20 first class centuries and now two centuries in his first four (completed) games of cricket should be enough to silence the critics......for now. Still not entirely sure how Doherty gets wickets, he appears to do bugger all with the ball, the shot from Chandimal was so bad it was comical, but fair play to the guy,he's relatively consistent, I'd still prefer to see Lyon in the team though. Well done Aus, it was a good game to watch.
Bearfax
Guest
Australia survived this ODI tournament because of Hughes and Warner. Without them the performance of the remaining batting line up was woeful. In the last match Australia scored only 109 runs without Hughes. Check the matches before and if Warner or Hughes didnt fire, the team were in for a white wash defeat. How these selectors can believe this is the right batting line up is beyond me. Sorry for harping on this but with Khawaja there it couldnt have been any worse and probably a lot better. But Hughes and Warner have hidden the truth of Australia's performances and justified the selectors inept.choices.
aggregated drupe
Roar Pro
I was surprised by Henriques and Doherty I don't rate either but they did pretty well. Fantastic by Hughes he will dominate world cricket in a few years.
Tony Tea
Guest
Averted disaster?!? Get your hand off it.