Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga takes career best figures

Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga takes career best figures in Kandy the day after a three-wicket haul in an IPL match in Mumbai. Sri Lankan Lasith Malinga has reached great heights during his long career, but even this was new ground for the legendary 35-year-old.In a remarkable display of skill and endurance, 

Malinga picked up career-best one-day figures of 7-49 in a domestic match in Kandy on Thursday, the day after he'd taken three wickets in an IPL clash in Mumbai.

On Wednesday night, Malinga removed Shane Watson, Kedar Jadhav and Dwayne Bravo in the Mumbai Indians' 37-run win over Chennai. After the match, Malinga jumped on a 1.40am flight that landed in Kandy, via Colombo, at 4.30am, giving him enough time to get to the Pallekele International Stadium by 7am for the 9.45am start of the match between Galle and Kandy. Thankfully for Malinga, his rival captain Dimuth Karunaratne elected to field first upon winning the toss, giving the travel-weary quick some time to relax before bowling in the second innings 

 

 Having made two with the bat in Galle's innings of 255, Malinga opened the bowling and finished with the figures of 7-49, the best of his 280-match one-day career. The right-armer picked up the first five wickets of the innings to reduce Kandy to 5-40, before he cleaned up the tail to complete a thumping 156-run win. Most impressively of all, Malinga bowled 9.5 overs unchanged. "We need to show and example to the youngsters," Malinga said after the match. 

 "How an international player should commit himself to the game. I think they will learn something out of this lesson." Malinga had initially expected to miss a chunk of the Mumbai Indians season to play in Sri Lanka's domestic one-day tournament which is serving as the nation's World Cup trials, but dispensation was given to the bowler to play in the IPL instead. 


 Malinga, however, opted to persist with his obligations with Galle. He captained Sri Lanka on their recent winless limited-overs tour of South Africa, but is hopeful of holding onto the captaincy for what would be a fourth World Cup later this year.