Images: Sri Lanka vs Zimbabwe, 8th T20

After Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first, opener Mahela Jayawardene took attack to the opposition right from the outset, hitting medium pacer Christopher Mpofu for a six and couple of boundaries in the opening over.

However the Islanders lost Tillakaratne Dilshan early, when he was picked up by Elton Chigumbura in the third over. Dilshan, who has been struggling in the tournament so far could only mange two runs on board.

Thissara Perera got a promotion up the order and revived the innings to some extent. The duo put on 56 runs for the second wicket, before off-spinner Greg lamb sent the left-hander back to the pavillion for 23 off just 19 balls.

Skipper Kumar Sangakkara too couldn't survive for long as he was caught at the short fine-leg by Raymond Price off the bowling of leg-spinner Graeme Cremer for just 3 .

Jayawardene, who hit a impressive 81 against New Zealand, continued his good run and scored his maiden Twenty20 century off just 63 balls.

Dinesh Chandimal, who was impressive in the previous match too was sent packing for just nine runs.

But such was the class that, while wickets were falling around him, his smart batting helped the Sri Lankans keep up with the run-rate.

He was particularly severe on spinners, hitting them to all corners of the park.

His knock finally came to an end, when he was snapped by Cremer at long on off Raymond price. The 63-ball innings included ten hits to the fence and four towering sixes as Sri Lanka finshed with 173 for seven wickets in the stpulated overs.

Zimbabwe's chase ran into a rain-interruption after the first over from Ajantha Mendis.

Play did resume after 66 minutes with the minnows chasing a revised victory target of 104 runs from 11 overs but another weather-disruption greeted them four overs later when they were 29 for one.

Consequentially the Duckworth-Lewis method was invoked and Zimbabwe were found 14 runs behind their opponents. Zimbabwe have little time to recover as they face New Zealand next.