Harare: Sri Lanka claim the series 5-0, but the series was not as one-sided as the scoreline suggests. Zimbabwe were completely outplayed in the first two games, but failed to build on a winning position of 134 for 1 in the third, where they fell short by just five runs. They gave the visitors a run for their money in the fourth game as well, losing by just two wickets. They looked down and out at 58 for 6, but Utseya and Dabengwa added 72 for the seventh wicket to take Zimbabwe within 23 runs of victory. Kulasekara, though, struck back with two quick wickets against the run of play to snatch the game from the hosts.

Zimbabwe will be ruing not being able to finish off games after getting into a winning position. They lost their last four wickets for three runs.

Prosper Utseya: "We competed very well but are disappointed to have failed to finish it off in the last three games."

Mahela Jayawardene: "We knew these matches were not going to be high scoring but our bowlers delivered when we needed it the most. We are a little disappointed with our batting over the last two matches and probably fell about 3- to 40 runs short today. However, we came back splendidly to win this one."

Mutthiah Muralitharan is the Man of the Match for his 5 for 29. Ajantha Mendis is the Man of the Series for his 15 wickets in five games.

Zimbabwe have bowled superbly to restrict Sri Lanka to 152, which will not be too easy to chase on a track that has played slow and kept low. The spinners did the trick for the home team, conceding just 87 runs between them in the space of 34 overs, and bagging three wickets in the process. But Zimbabwe cannot afford to get complacent here as Mendis and Murali may well prove to be a handful on this pitch. 152 is by no means a match-winning score, but on this track, and against a struggling Zimbabwean batting line-up, it is certainly a challenging one.

Brief Score: Sri Lanka 152 (Kandamby 40, Rainsford 4-22) beat Zimbabwe 133 (Muralitharan 5-29) by 19 runs.
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