Ireland won the toss, made a double-strike in the ninth over of Sri Lanka’s innings, and took 6 for 44 in their last six overs. But so comprehensively did Sri Lanka win the other portions of this match, that they trounced Ireland by 133 runs, bowling them out for 192 after they had made 325.
This means that Sri Lanka sail through into the Super Six stage of the World Cup Qualifier, along with Scotland and Oman from their group. Sri Lanka will carry forward their points from their big win against Oman, but they have not played Scotland yet in the group stage.
Ireland, meanwhile, have been knocked out of contention for the ODI World Cup. They still have one match to play, against UAE, but both those sides have already been ruled out.
For Sri Lanka, Wanidu Hasaranga got his third five-wicket haul in as many matches, while Dimuth Karunaratne brought up his maiden ODI hundred, having made four successive half-centuries in the lead-up.
Both players’ places in Sri Lanka’s top XI were not secure. While Hasaranga is a T20I star, he had not quite translated that into ODI glory. Karunaratne, meanwhile, had been Sri Lanka’s most consistent Test batter of the last five years but had not excelled in white-ball cricket.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka 325 in 49.5 overs (Pathum Nissanka 20, Dimuth Karunarathne 103, Sadeera Samarawickrama 82, Charith Asalanka 38, Dhanajaya de Silva 42; Mark Adair 4-46, Barry McCarthy 3-56, Gareth Delany 2-52) beat Ireland 192 in 31 overs (Harry Tector 33, Curtis Campher 39, George Dockerrel 26*, Josh Little 20; Wanidu Hasaranga 5-79, Maheesh Theekshana 2-29) by 133 runs
(Cricinfo)