KEY POINTS:
Mahela Jayawardene described yesterday's peerless unbeaten century against New Zealand as his greatest one-day innings.
The Sri Lankan skipper provided the man-of-the-match judges with their easiest task of the World Cup after stroking a sublime and inventive 115 not out off 109 balls to push his team's total
well beyond reach of New Zealand.
The man who was struggling for form in New Zealand earlier in the year arrived at the wicket after the loss of Kumar Sangakkara, with his team's innings teetering dangerously at 67 for two in the 14th over.
But, first with Upal Tharanga and then with Chamara Silva and Tillakaratne Dilshan, Jayawardene steadily built the tempo through his team's innings, taking care over the salvage work before exploding in the final overs.
His century was his ninth in ODI cricket, but his first in 23 World Cup innings.
"I'd rate this one right at the top," he said afterwards. "It's a World Cup semifinal so, for me it was all about making a contribution and I'm pretty happy with that.
"I've become mentally much stronger over the past few years; the captaincy would have helped but the coaching of Tom Moody has also been very influential.
"He's pushed me to the limit and has never been happy with anyone cruising. I've become tougher as a result."
Jayawardene revealed he would have settled for a much smaller total than the one eventually achieved, but that the support from his middle teammates and Tharanga - who made 73 - was critical.
"I thought 240 would be a competitive score and beyond that would be our advantage. We'd lost a few wickets and for me it was just a case of trying to bat through and seeing where I was at the 45th or 46th over mark.
"But the middle order guys who came in chipped in nicely - Chamara was a bit unfortunate [to get out] and so was Dilshan ... he came in and gave us some real momentum, and eased the pressure on me.
"Once I got through to that situation, I thought I could try to hit some boundaries and pick up the scoring rate, and everything clicked."
As for the final, Jayawardene said he couldn't say much until Sri Lanka knew who they were playing, but his side weren't likely to stray far from the approach that had already served them so successfully.
"For us it's a very big match and it's all about sticking to our basics, and carrying on what we've been doing for the past six weeks," he said.
"We've built up for the final. New Zealand was a very big hurdle that we had to clear; they're always tough. But we're there now and we've been looking forward to this day for some time."
