Kapugedera's Achilles' heel, and Dilshan's insipid Pallekele farewell

Before he took the full house at Pallekele on a marauding adventure, Glenn Maxwell sold them a red herring. His first six, in the fifth over, was a reverse-sweep over the point boundary, off Sachithra Senanayake. Next ball, he tried the shot again, but didn't connect quite as well and got a four. When he went for the same stroke a third time and just about avoided being caught by the point fielder after mis-hitting it, it seemed, perhaps, that Maxwell was merely at the crease for a good time, rather than a long time. He barely mis-hit a ball after that.

Like Achilles, it was the heel that let Chamara Kapugedera down. When Maxwell launched a Thisara Perera slower ball high into the air in the 13th over, Kapugedera settled nicely beneath it on the deep-midwicket boundary. He watched the ball sail into his hands, but within a second of completing the take, he felt the back of his right shoe tread on the cardboard advertising triangles that encase the boundary rope. He let go of the ball immediately, but it was too late. The third umpire awarded a six upon seeing replays.

A little over a week ago, Sri Lanka held the world record for the highest total in all three formats. On August 30, England bettered Sri Lanka's ODI record of 443 for 9, against Netherlands, hitting 444 for 3 against Pakistan at Trent Bridge. For much of their innings on Tuesday, Australia didn't look like they would get close to the 260 Sri Lanka had struck against Kenya in the 2007 World T20. But when Travis Head came to the crease and added his firepower to Maxwell's, the pair added 109 unbeaten runs in 40 balls. They had needed 14 to break the record at the start of the final over. Head did it with a six off the penultimate ball.

Tillakaratne Dilshan has often been at his most colourful at Pallekele. This, in fact, had been the ground at which he had hit his only T20 hundred. His last game there, however, was a forgettable one. Dilshan tracked a high ball from the bat of Maxwell in the 16th over, but couldn't hold on to the catch - though it was soon deemed a no-ball for height. He palmed a ball onto the straight fence in the 20th over, allowing Australia to get a little closer to the record total. And though he delivered a trademark cover drive off Mitchell Starc in the first over of the chase, he was bowled - in familiar fashion - soon after, trying to hammer a straight ball through midwicket.