Mathews says the key a series evening victory in the Second ODI against Australia is to take a cautious approach against the dominant fast bowling of the tall left-hander Starc.
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Australia won the first one-dayer by three wickets.
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 global on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old Zampa accounted for dangerman Mendis and then got Dhananjaya de Silva to leave Sri Lanka struggling at 158 for five.
Sri Lanka lost 5-27 as their innings ended abruptly, but the damage had always been done with Kusal Mendis top-scoring after posting a run-a-ball 69 for his second successive 50.
Australia could muster 206 as they were bowled out with 16 deliveries to go. He helped his side win one title while also finishing as the second highest run-getter in T20 worldwide history with 1,884 from 78 games. Thisara Perera returned with figures of 3-33.
Australia slumped to 41-3 when Smith (30) was caught by Dilruwan Perera off Aponso.
Australia’s tour of South Africa begins September 27 with a one-day match against Ireland in Benoni after which it plays five ODIs against the Proteas.
Despite leaving the tour early, Smith has emphasised his desire to continue captaining Australia in all three formats, and Lehmann backed that sentiment. “But that’s just what happens, it’s the competitive edge when you’re out there and when sometimes things aren’t going your way you do get a bit of white-line fever”.
Even in the 2016 World T20 campaign for Sri Lanka, Dilshan emerged as the best batsman for his team with 133 runs from four games.
“It would have been nice to go home with a 2-0 but credit to Sri Lanka for the way they played today”. I think I’ve learned a lot about the way I play, particularly white-ball cricket, from the IPL.
Electing to bat first, Sri Lanka posted a strong total of 288 runs courtesy a 125-run and 103-run partnership between Chandimal and Mendis and Perera and Mathews respectively. “We needed that win and Aponso was brilliant, just incredible and he bowled with a lot of effort”, said Mathews.
“We have a clear plan for him – to refrain from attacking him, so that we don’t give him wickets”, Mathews said on Tuesday. We can rectify that hopefully in the next game.
But by that point, Sri Lanka already had enough runs. He was the fourth Sri Lanka batsman, after Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene, to cross 10,000 ODI runs.
Mendis, who followed up his 67 in the first ODI with a run-a-ball 69, hit nine boundaries and forced Australian Smith to use seven bowlers until the 21st over.
Along with his exploits with the bat, Dilshan is also quite a handy spin-bowler, having taken 106 ODI wickets from 203 innings.
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The action now shifts to Dambulla for the third ODI on August 28.
