AP, Sri Lanka :Spin bowler Amila Aponso and seamer Thisara Perera shared seven wickets to help Sri Lanka to a crushing 82-run win over Australia in their second one-day international on Wednesday.The five-match series is now level at 1-1, with three more matches to be played.Australia, which won the first match by three wickets last Sunday, will be without captain Steve Smith for the remaining games after he announced post-match that he will be returning home to rest up. Batting first after winning the toss, Sri Lanka made 288 all out having recovered from a poor start. Kusal Mendis top scored with 69, backed up by aggressive 50s from captain Angelo Mathews and Kusal Perera.In reply, Australia was bowled out for 206 in the 48th over. Matthew Wade top scored with a career-best 76 off 88 balls including three boundaries.Aponso, playing only in his second one-day international, returned 4-18 in 9.2 overs while Mathews made 57 and took two wickets.Thisara Perera returned 3-33.Australia started their chase poorly losing David Warner in (1) in the second over caught behind off Thisara Perera. Aaron Finch whose aggressive 56 secured Australia victory in the first game was also out for four in the fourth over bowled by Thisara Perera.Australia slumped to 41-3 when Smith (30) was caught by Dilruwan Perera off Aponso.Wade and George Bailey shared 61 for the fourth wicket and later Wade combined with Travis Head (31) for 64 runs for the sixth wicket.But Australia never managed the asking rate, and a collapse that saw its last five wickets fall for 24 runs handed the hosts a comfortable victory.Soon after the match, Smith announced he will miss the remaining three ODIs and two Twenty20 internationals in Sri Lanka as he is returning home to rest up and prepare for the upcoming tours. David Warner will take over as captain.”It took a bit of convincing to get me over the line. I hate missing cricket but I think in the long run, a bit of break will do me a world of good,” Smith said.”It would have been nice to go home with a 2-0 but credit to Sri Lanka for the way they played today. Their middle order played really well and we gave away too many freebies with the ball – 288 was well over par on that wicket, 250 was probably a par score.”Mathews said Sri Lanka’s opening partnerships hadn’t been good since the test series, but he credited Mendis and Chandimal for rescuing the innings.”Bit disappointed where we ended up,” Mathews said. “I thought we could have got 300 plus. But we lost three, four wickets in a couple of overs. We can rectify that hopefully in the next game.”Seam bowler James Faulkner took a hat trick to help Australia bowl Sri Lanka out just shy of its allotted 50 overs.Mathews opted to bat first after winning the toss but Sri Lanka soon lost two wickets for 12 runs. Danushka Gunathilaka, who was called up in place of Milinda Siriwardana and sent to open the innings, was bowled by fast bowler Mitchell Starc for two runs with Sri Lanka’s total on 12.Tillakaratne Dilshan was out in the next over, bowled off the edge of his bat by spinner Nathan Lyon as he attempted a leg glance.Then Mendis and Dinesh Chandimal, who made 48, shared 125 runs for the third wicket to pull Sri Lanka out of trouble.Chandimal, who top scored with an unbeaten 80 in the first match, scored his runs off 67 balls – hitting one six and two fours before being out lbw to leg spinner Adam Zampa after the Australians sought a review.Zampa trapped Mendis lbw in his next over for a crucial wicket, after Mendis hit struck nine boundaries.Dhananjaya de Silva’s dismissal for seven runs reduced Sri Lanka to 158-5, but Mathews and Perera shared a stand of 103 from 94 balls to revitalize Sri Lanka’s innings.Faulkner had good reason to celebrate, dismissing Kusal Perera lbw for 54 with a slower ball in the last ball of the 45th over, returning in the 47th over to have Mathews caught in the deep for 57 and clean bowling Thisara Perera for 12 to complete the hat trick.Thisara Perera faced 53 deliveries and hit a six and five boundaries, but had a reprieve on 28 when Zampa dropped an easy catch.Zampa returned the best bowling figures for Australia with 3-42.Starc also took three wickets, but went for 53 runs. The third match will be played in Dambulla on Sunday.
