Australia win series

DAMBULLA, Sri Lanka (AP):

George Bailey led the batting with an unbeaten 90 after fast bowler John Hastings took a career-best six wickets to propel Australia to a series-clinching six-wicket win over Sri Lanka in their fourth one-day international yesterday.

The victory gave Australia an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series.

Sri Lanka chose to bat first after winning the toss and were bowled out for 212 runs in their allotted 50 overs. Dhananjaya de Silva top-scored with 76, and Hastings returned 6-45, improving on his previous best of 4-58 against India earlier this year.

Australia reached 217-4 with 19 overs to spare. Bailey scored his runs off 93 balls, hitting a six and 11 boundaries. Opening batsman Aaron Finch smashed 55 off 26 balls to help Australia take control of the chase.

Sachith Pathirana returned a career-best 3-37 for Sri Lanka.

"It's very, very pleasing, we are thrilled to win the series," Australia captain David Warner said. "It was a hard-fought effort; we were up against it most of the time. Conditions here are quite tough; we had to work hard for the runs."

The last match of the series will be played in Pallekele on Sunday.