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Australia finally singing in Sri Lanka but Warner bemoans imperfect pitch

Australia claimed an unassailable 3-1 lead in the one-day series against Sri Lanka overnight, but there’s still a battle the cricketers want to win before leaving the country: the one against the Sri Lankan curators.

Sep 01, 2016, updated Sep 01, 2016
George Bailey and Matthew Wade leave the field as they celebrate their six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka. Photo: Eranga Jayawardena / AP

George Bailey and Matthew Wade leave the field as they celebrate their six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka. Photo: Eranga Jayawardena / AP

Stand-in captain David Warner again criticised the country’s pitches in Dambulla, accusing groundsmen of producing decks which were counter-productive to the sport’s growth.

The Aussies chased down Sri Lanka’s 212 in 31 overs in the fourth ODI, the first time in the series a team has scored at more than a run a ball.

“We’re trying to grow the game,” Warner said.

“It’s a little bit disappointing from our point of view because it’s not the way we like to come out and play.

“We like to play an aggressive brand of cricket, we like to entertain the crowd.

“So far it’s been very difficult to do that.

“From a Sri Lankan’s spectator point of view, for them I would like to see fours and sixes and big hits. But at the moment it’s not that way.”

Sri Lanka’s score of 288 in the second ODI is the only innings total above 250 in the series.

It’s a stark contrast to the 3-444 England hit against Pakistan in 50 overs on Tuesday, or Australia’s average run-rate of 6.45 during the home summer of one-dayers against India.

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“When you see games like last night (in Nottingham), I love that kind of cricket,” Warner said.

“That’s why as a youngster I went to watch the game.

“But if you come here and play five games like that on wickets like they are at the moment it’s going to be very tough to draw big crowd all the time.”

Warner was also frustrated after he was led to believe the fourth one-dayer would be played on a greener wicket on the other side of the square, before discovering on match-eve it would be played on the same dry surface as the third one-dayer.

“I think we got our hopes too high,” he said.

Warner’s latest comments come after Colombo’s curator labelled the Aussies as “whingers” and “poor losers” during the Test series.

Fellow opener Aaron Finch described his pitch for the first ODI as “poor” before also criticising the practice wickets prepared for the team.

-AAP

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