KINGSTON – West In­dies’ usu­al­ly de­pend­able bat­ting line­up failed to fire de­spite a promis­ing start, while Sri Lan­ka’s bat­ters came to the fore as the vis­i­tors won the all-im­por­tant open­ing One Day In­ter­na­tion­al by 41 runs in Ja­maica on Wednes­day (June 3).

Led by half cen­turies from Pathum Nis­san­ka and cap­tain Kusal Mendis and mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions from Charith Asalan­ka and Janith Liyan­age, Sri Lan­ka post­ed a com­pet­i­tive 303 for sev­en in 50 overs af­ter be­ing sent in to bat at Sabi­na Park.

The Windies were giv­en a sol­id start and looked on track to mount a se­ri­ous chal­lenge un­til an all-fa­mil­iar col­lapse saw them crum­ble from 125 for two to 167 for five, be­fore even­tu­al­ly be­ing bowled out for 262 in 49.2 overs.

The home side’s new look open­ing pair of John Camp­bell and Justin Greaves gave them a sol­id start by putting on 50 runs for the first wick­et in six overs.

But against the run of play, Camp­bell was run out by some spec­tac­u­lar field­ing by Liyan­age at mid on, with his ac­cu­rate throw shat­ter­ing the stumps to leave him short.

Greaves looked on track for a half cen­tu­ry af­ter rac­ing to 45 off 38 balls with five fours and one six, un­til he was cramped for room by a de­liv­ery from off­spin­ner Ma­heesh Theek­shana, which can­noned in­to his leg stump to make the score 73 for two.

Kea­cy Car­ty and Shai Hope put the Windies back on track in their run chase dur­ing a 52-run stand for the third wick­et, which car­ried them to a com­fort­able po­si­tion of 125 for two.

Just as the two bat­ters were look­ing to change gears, the part­ner­ship was bro­ken by an­oth­er piece of spec­tac­u­lar field­ing, this time by Ka­min­du Mendis, who dived to his right at mid­wick­et to haul in the catch to dis­miss Car­ty for 27.

Sher­fane Ruther­ford made just two be­fore he was trapped lbw by Wanin­du Hasaranga to see West In­dies slide to 134 for four.

Hope brought up his 31st ODI half-cen­tu­ry off 61 balls by dri­ving a de­liv­ery from Mi­lan Rath­nayake to long on for a sin­gle.

But the skip­per then in­ex­plic­a­bly gave his wick­et away by hit­ting a de­liv­ery from Dush­man­tha Chameera straight in­to the hands of back­ward point to be dis­missed for 56 off 66 de­liv­er­ies, in­clu­sive of two six­es and two fours.

Ros­ton Chase and Gu­dakesh Motie added 47 runs, but need­ed nine overs to do so, which re­sult­ed in the re­quired run rate spi­ralling past eight runs an over.

The chase was ef­fec­tive­ly over when both bat­ters lost their wick­et in the space of two runs, with Theek­shana dis­miss­ing Motie for 22, while Chameera, who wrapped up the tail, bowled Chase for 33 to leave the chase in tat­ters at 216 for sev­en.

Matthew Forde and Shamar Joseph en­ter­tained dur­ing a 42-run part­ner­ship for the ninth wick­et, but it was nev­er go­ing to be enough to car­ry their side to vic­to­ry.

Ear­li­er, Sri Lan­ka’s to­tal might have looked a lot dif­fer­ent had Kea­cy Car­ty held on to a sit­ter to dis­miss Nis­san­ka off the very first ball of the match.

The diminu­tive open­er drove a full outswinger from pac­er Jay­den Seales straight in­to the hands of Car­ty sta­tioned at cov­er, but he failed to hold on to the chest-high catch.

Some good bowl­ing by Seales even­tu­al­ly earned him the break­through, with a se­ries of short balls even­tu­al­ly lead­ing to a mist­imed pull by Ka­min­du Mendis that bal­looned in­to the air for wick­et­keep­er Shai Hope to take the catch run­ning back.

The missed chance to dis­miss Nis­san­ka proved cost­ly, as he joined forces with Kusal Mendis to frus­trate the Windies’ bowlers dur­ing a 136-run part­ner­ship for the sec­ond wick­et.

Matthew Forde broke the stand by dis­miss­ing Kusal Mendis for 72 off 62 balls and Hope took a sharp catch div­ing on­to the pitch to re­move Nis­san­ka for 79 off 103 balls.

Asalan­ka then hit 45 off 44 balls and Liyan­age stroked an un­beat­en 44 off 29 balls with five fours and one six to help the vis­i­tors get past the 300-run mark.

They were two wick­ets apiece for Forde (2-44), Chase (2-47) and Seales (2-67).

Pac­er Alzarri Joseph, in his first com­pet­i­tive game in 10 months, looked rusty and his nine overs went for 65 runs.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

PAK­ISTAN 303-7 in 50 overs (Pathum Nis­san­ka 79, Kusal Mendis 72, Charith Asalan­ka 45, Janith Liyan­age 44 not out, Pa­van Rath­nayake 24, Ka­min­du Mendis 12; Matthew Forde 2-44, Ros­ton Chase 2-47, Jay­den Seales 2-67).

WEST IN­DIES 262 in 49.2 overs (Shai Hope 56, Justin Greaves 45, Ros­ton Chase 33, Kea­cy Car­ty 27, Shamar Joseph 23 not out, John Camp­bell 17, Matthew Forde 15; Dush­man­tha Chameera 4-67, Ma­heesh Theek­shana 2-26).

Sri Lan­ka won by 41 runs.