Cricket: Sri Lanka hammers New Zealand to take series

6:00 PM By NICK STANLEY

AUCKLAND – Sri Lanka has delivered New Zealand a cricket lesson today, wrapping up the one-day series with a nine-wicket win in the third match at Eden Park.

Lead by Sanath Jayasuriya's blazing 103 off 83 balls and Marvan Atapattu's 59 not out, Sri Lanka needed only 29.5 overs to knock over the 182 runs for the loss of one wicket.

The victory gives the tourists an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the series with two games to spare.

The Black Caps were always in danger of losing the 10th of their last 11 games after failing to bat out
their 47 overs in the rain-shortened match.

Wickets fell in a steady stream throughout the innings, only Craig McMillan, who accounted for one-third of the 181 runs with his 61, and Nathan Astle (33) made it to 20.

Sent in to bat by Sri Lanka after morning rain delayed the start, the Black Caps were soon in trouble.

Opener Matthew Sinclair made five before chopping a ball from Nuwan Zoysa onto his stumps and Stephen Fleming's poor run continued, caught by Muttiah Muralitharan off the bowling of Chaminda Vaas for nine.

From 22 for two in the 11th over, Nathan Astle and Craig McMillan set about rescuing the New Zealand innings, but the recovery faltered on 74, when Astle was adjudged to have got an edge off Muralitharan.

Lou Vincent joined McMillan to take the score past 100, before an attempted sweep off Kumar Dharmasena popped up an easy catch to Jayasuriya and ended Vincent's maiden innings on 17.

From there the wickets tumbled, Jacob Oram was caught and bowled by Muralitharan for 11, Chris Harris was run out for eight and Adam Parore was caught behind off the bowling of Vaas for two.

McMillan brought up his 50 with a big six over mid-on, but when he was clean bowled by Dharmasena in the 42nd over the responsiblity to post a competitive score fell to Daniel Vettori.

But the New Zealand tail failed to wag and Vettori (17) was left without a partner as James Franklin (4) and Chris Martin (1) went cheaply.

Dharmasena was the best of the Sri Lankan bowlers, taking three wickets for 33 runs off his ten overs.

By contrast, Sri Lanka made the batting look easy, Jayasuriya taking the attack to the Black Caps bowlers and Atapattu backing him up at the other end.

None of the six bowlers used by Stephen Fleming could stop the flow of runs, 38 runs were smashed from James Franklin's four overs, McMillan's four overs went for 25 and Daniel Vettori's 7 overs went for 44.

Chirs Harris was the only wicket-taker, but by the time he had Jayasuriya caught on the boundary by Jacob Oram the game had been won.

Kumar Sangakkara (13) joined Atapattu and the pair took the Sri Lankans to victory.