Co-hosts Sri Lanka are out of the T20 World Cup after collapsing to a 61-run defeat by New Zealand in Colombo.<\/p>\n
Needing to win to keep their semi-final hopes alive, Sri Lanka looked to be in control late into the New Zealand innings, having restricted them to 98-6 after 16 overs.<\/p>\n
However, the bowlers crumbled in the face of a late surge from Mitchell Santner (47 from 26 balls) and Cole McConchie (31 not out from 23) and New Zealand bludgeoned 70 from the final four overs.<\/p>\n
A chase of 169 left the game in the balance but Sri Lanka’s top order folded, with fast bowler Matt Henry taking two wickets in the powerplay.<\/p>\n
From there, the home side failed to generate any momentum and when Rachin Ravindra had both Kusal Mendis and Pavan Rathnayake stumped in the ninth over, Sri Lanka were 29-4 and the game was up.<\/p>\n
Left-arm spinner Ravindra, who made 32 from 22 with the bat, took a further two wickets to end with figures of 4-27, while Henry was afforded the rest of the night off after taking 2-3 from his two overs as Sri Lanka dragged themselves to 107-8.<\/p>\n
After losing to England in their opening Super 8s game, Sri Lanka depart with a whimper while New Zealand remain in contention to reach a fifth T20 World Cup semi-final.<\/p>\n
For much of the first innings, though, Sri Lanka’s bowlers looked like being the match-winners, with spinner Maheesh Theekshana taking 3-9 from his first three overs and fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera also impressing.<\/p>\n
They led the way as New Zealand slumped from 75-2 to 84-6 in less than three overs.<\/p>\n
But Sri Lanka failed to finish the job and McConchie began the fightback before his captain took over with a brutal display of hitting, dismantling a suddenly fragile Sri Lanka attack, in a stand of 84.<\/p>\n
It took New Zealand to a competitive total that, ultimately, proved more than good enough as the spinners took over and Sri Lanka fell apart.<\/p>\n
Both sides have one Super 8s game remaining. New Zealand can seal their place in the semi-finals with victory over England on Friday, while Sri Lanka face Pakistan in Pallekele on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Co-hosts Sri Lanka are out of the T20 World Cup after collapsing to a 61-run defeat by New…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445460,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-445459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445459\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445460"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}