Pallekele: Sri Lanka beat New Zealand in the first match of the Super Eight stage of the ICC T20 World Cup, the match went down to the super over and it was Lasith Malinga’s brilliant six balls that did the job for the home team.
Captain Mahela Jayawardene and Thisara Perera came in to bat in the super over; Ross Taylor selected Tim Southee to bowl the all important over. Southee in the over did not concede a single boundary but the Sri Lankans managed to get 13 runs of the over.
Martin Guptill and Brendon McCullum came out to bat in the super over for the Kiwis and could only manage 7 runs. Interestingly, no boundary was hit in the two super overs.
Sri Lanka in pursuit of their target of 174 got off to a brilliant start against the off-spin of Nathan McCullum. TM Dilshan took the attack on him and the first over conceded 17 runs.
Sri Lankan openers never looked back from there and both Dilshan and Jayawardene played some brilliant strokes.
Jayawardene played some classical cover drives and lofted the ball whenever the opportunity presented itself. Sri Lanka in the first powerplay scored 68 runs. Oram provided Kiwis their first wicket when Jayawardene trying to pull Oram gave a catch to Vettori standing at fine leg. Sangakkara then walked in to bat with score at 80 for one in the eighth over. Sangakkara too started middling the ball straightaway as Sri Lanka scored close to ten runs an over, meanwhile Dilshan got to his fifty.
Sangakkara’s run-out changed the course of the match as amazingly the home team batsmen slowed down a bit to give Kiwis a sniff. Dilshan like Sangakkara got himself run out but not before scoring a brilliant 76.
James Franklin for New Zealand than got two wickets in the middle and the hosts needed eight runs to win of the last over. Tim Southee than came up with four brilliant balls and Sri Lanka needed five runs of the last two deliveries. Lahiru Thirimanne than scooped the fifth ball over the short fine-leg fielder for a boundary. Sri Lanka needed one run of the last delivery to win but a run-out saw the match go into the super over.
Earlier in the day, Martin Guptill who was making a comeback into the New Zealand squad opened the innings along with Rob Nicol. Both the Kiwi openers were a bit cautious as New Zealand could only score four runs of the first two overs.
Guptill then took the charge and hit Kulasekara for a straight four, on the next ball he tried to replicate the shot but provided an opportunity to Thisara Perera who was standing on mid-on. Perera made a great effort but couldn’t hold on to the ball. Jayawardene brought his premier bowler Lasith Malinga into the attack in the fourth over. Malinga who has been struggling with his form in this tournament started poorly conceding nine runs in his first over.
Even Ajantha Mendis couldn’t do much conceding ten runs in his first over. Kiwi openers played intelligently and took their teams score past 50 in the seventh over providing their teammates a perfect platform.
Akila Dananjaya who was playing his first match, provided Sri Lanka the much needed wicket of Guptill. After the fall of Guptill’s wicket birthday boy Brendon McCullum walked in to bat and looked in great touch. Both McCullum and Nicol attacked the Sri Lankan spinners and took New Zealand’s score close to the three figure mark. McCullum lost his wicket trying to hit a six but not before playing a handy knock of 25 in which he cleared the boundary twice.
The captain of the New Zealand team than came out to bat. Nicol who was playing a second fiddle till now, launched an attack on Mendis hitting him for three sixes in an over and reaching his fifty in the process. But in the next over he lost his wicket to the debutant.
Ross Taylor also hit three boundaries before getting out to a brilliant slower delivery from Kulasekara. New Zealand would have hoped for a better finish as they had 150 on the score board with 18 balls to go, but some good death bowling from Malinga and Kulasekara ensured that the Kiwis could only get 25 runs of the last three overs. New Zealand finished their innings at 174/7. Kulasekara and Dananjaya picked up two wickets each for the home team.
Brief Score:
New Zealand: 174/7 (Nicol 58, Guptill 38, Dananjaye 2-32)
Sri Lanka: 174/6 (Dilshan 76, Jayawardene 44, Franklin 2-34)
By Indian Sports News Network