Mumbai: At 90 for six after 15 overs, New Zealand’s hopes of making a match of their crucial T20 World Cup Super Eight game against Sri Lanka seemed buried at Colombo’s R Premadasa Stadium.
After being put into bat by Sri Lanka skipper Dasun Shanaka, nothing much had gone right for the Kiwis till that point. Their dashing opening pair of Finn Allen and Tim Seifert had not been allowed to showcase their explosiveness, and the middle-order had collapsed like a pack of cards.
The Kiwis, desperate to win after their first Super 8 game against Pakistan was washed out, had crawled to 75/3 in their first 10 overs, which was their lowest halfway score in this tournament.
The packed home crowd was on its feet celebrating as spinner Maheesh Theekshana and pacer Dushmantha Chameera struck regular blows to reduce New Zealand to 84/6 after 12.1 overs.
But you never count out a New Zealand side till the last ball is bowled. There was no sign of revival when the seventh wicket pair of Cole McConchie and skipper Mitchell Santner quietly played out the next four overs. At the 16-over mark, New Zealand had huffed and puffed to 98/6.
From there on, the pair whipped up such a storm that the home side couldn’t muster a response. McConchie and Santner waded into the Lanka bowlers to plunder 70 runs in the last four overs to lift New Zealand to 168/8. The seventh wicket partnership produced 84 runs, which is the highest for New Zealand in T20Is.
Santner lashed 47 off 26 balls (2×4, 4×6) before falling off the last ball of the innings while McConchie, who had started the counter-attack by launching into fast bowler Dushmantha Chameera, remained unbeaten on 31 off 23 balls (3×4, 2×6).
On a new pitch that proved sluggish and where the ball was not coming onto the bat, 168 was always going to challenge a batting line-up that had folded for just 95 runs in their previous game against England.
To the disappointment of the home fans, it proved to an abject surrender by the Sri Lanka batters in the chase. They took 18 overs to reach 100, and limped to 107/8.
The embarrassing 61-run defeat ended Sri Lanka’s semi-final hopes. England have already qualified from Group 2, and the margin of victory gives New Zealand (3 pts – 3.050) a huge net run rate advantage over Pakistan (1 pt – -0.461).
Pakistan play Sri Lanka in their final game after New Zealand face England on Thursday.
Inspired by the heroics of their captain and McConchie, the New Zealand bowlers came out firing on all cylinders. Matt Henry provided them a dream start, bowling in-form Pathum Nissanka for a first-ball duck. The Sri Lanka opener had no chance as Henry produced a dream delivery that darted in from outside off-stump to rattle the stumps.
Henry backed his wicket-maiden opening over with a strike off the first ball of his second over, getting Charith Asalanka to miscue to Daryl Mitchell at midwicket.
The first runs off Henry’s bowling came off the 10th ball when Pavan Rathnayake picked a two with a glance past short fine leg.
It was brilliant, disciplined bowling from the New Zealand bowlers in the Powerplay, restricting Sri Lanka to 20/2 in six overs, which is their second lowest Powerplay total in men’s T20Is, behind 18/3 versus India in 2022.
The pair of Kusal Mendis and Pavan Rathnayake were all at sea. After prodding around and having nothing to show for in the six overs of their stay together, pressure got to them as they fell off successive legal deliveries, intervened by a wide off which they also ran a single.
When Rachin Ravindra was brought on to bowl the ninth over, the Mendis and Rathnayake looked to give the charge in desperation and were stumped, to leave Sri Lanka reeling at 29/4 after 8.2 overs. Ravindra picked captain Dasun Shanaka in his second over to reduce the home side to 47/5 after 11 overs. The left-arm spinner got his fourth wicket in the form of Dushan Hemantha at the total of 59, finishing with his best-ever T20I figures of 4-0-27-4, emerging the unlikely bowling hero.
