Australia vs Sri Lanka, 20th match at London, Jun 15 2019 - Match Result

Thanks for joining us. Great fun today. The first 15 overs of Sri Lanka's innings was as entertaining as any passage so far this World Cup. Pretty sure there's plenty more coming on Sunday. It's India v Pakistan. Hope you've planned out your day in front of the TV and of course with us here on ESPNcricinfo. Trust me, your second-screen experience will be as good, if not better. For now, head over to our homepage to catch up with all the build-up. Some terrific pieces from Osman Samiuddin is already in. And there's promise for much more. I'll be back again early in the day to bring you up to speed with everything India v Pakistan. For the moment, I'm going to head off quickly to catch some sleep. Goodnight folks, pleasure having your company. Cheers!

Aaron Finch is the Player of the Match for his 153. "I was hitting some nice drives early, which is a good sign for my batting. It was a nice wicket. I'm working on trying to ensure my head doesn't fall over. We thought we could get 350 plus, but Sri Lanka executed superbly under pressure at the end. We thought we were a touch short with the new ball, Kusal and Dimuth were superb. You want to bowl top-of-off and when they kept hitting there, we had to change plans. It was nice for Maxwell to have a long boundary to bowl with, hard to get 10 overs out of him on flat wickets, but with a bit of real estate out here and the breeze against him, it helped to get overs out of him."

Dimuth Karunaratne: "Finch and Smith batted well, but we came back strongly. Lost key moments in the chase. Started well, but the middle order couldn't capitalise. They had to handle pressure and keep the momentum going. Starc, Cummins are world class, we knew what they could do, had to keep a plan but we didn't. We lost couple of games to the rain, now need to win a couple of games. We came here to play well, we want to play it one game at a time."

Malcolm: "Sri Lanka had the right approach, but as soon as Maxwell was brought on the game was over as a contest. People always praise his batting but I think he has been even more instrumental with his bowling, tightening the screws and reinstating psychological advantage for the Aussies." -- This was just the sort of pitch where he could do his thing. As Monga said earlier, this was no pitch to play four pacers, really.

6.00pm Sri Lanka were cruising. 87 without loss in 10 overs. Australia slipped into their Plan B and brought Maxwell on to try and preserve their trumpcards for later. Sri Lanka fell into the trap of the asking rate once Australia got the first breakthrough. Sri Lanka really needed Mathews and Thisara to bail them out, but once they fell, the chase was as good as over.

Karunaratne's 97 was in the end Sri Lanka's only consolation. If you're a Sri Lankan fan, you probably feel crushed right now. You have every right to feel that way. There was a ray of hope that turned into spurts of excitement. And then it all came crashing down.

Sajidh: "Really disappointed as a Sri Lankan fan. Was excited like never before having a belief we will chase this target down and we could have done that quite comfortable with the start we had, but all that excitement for no avail. Now all hopes lost on qualifying for the semis." -- Well, you expected them to get to the semi-finals. You're an optimist