Sri Lanka's Charith Asalanka slams his maiden World Cup ton
Sri Lanka's Charith Asalanka has slammed his maiden century in One Day Internationals. The middle-order batter starred for the Lankans against Bangladesh in the 2023 ICC Cricket World Cup encounter at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. He smashed his maiden World Cup century, getting Sri Lanka past 250. Asalanka saved the Lankans from a batting collapse after they were 72/3.
Asalanka helped SL recover
Asalanka came to the middle after losing Kusal Perera, Kusal Mendis, and Pathum Nissanka for 72 runs. Asalanka then paired up with Sadeera Samarawickrama to take SL past 130. Despite losing the latter, Asalanka shared crucial stands with Dhananjaya de Silva and Maheesh Theekshana. Asalanka reached his century off 101 balls in the 48th over. He smashed 101 off 102 balls (4s: 6, 6s:5).
Third SL batter with this feat
Asalanka has become the third batter to score a century for Sri Lanka at number five or below in ODI World Cups. Mahela Jayawardene (100 vs Afghanistan, Dunedin, 2015) and Mathews (113 vs India, Leeds, 2019) are the others. With this knock, Asalanka touched the 1,500-run mark in ODIs. He has two fifty-plus scores in three ODI innings against Bangladesh.
A look at his ODI career
In 49 ODIs for Sri Lanka, Asalanka has raced to 1,552 runs at an average of 40.84. He slammed his 12th fifty-plus score. Asalanka has an impressive 502 runs from 15 ODIs at neutral venues at 45.63. The Lankan batter has 1,344 runs in Asia at 44.80. In the match against Bangladesh, Asalanka completed 800 runs in the format in 2023.
