Kane Williamson’s New Zealand strengthened their hopes of finishing 4th in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 league stages with a comprehensive 5-wicket win over Sri-Lanka here at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
The Blackcaps are now favourites to finish 4th in the points table, meaning a 3rd consecutive appearance in World cup Semi-final is not looking like a mountain to climb anymore. Whereas Sri-Lanka’s semi-final hopes were anyways dashed but today’s loss means that the Lankans will not be taking the flight to Pakistan for the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy.
New Zealand made a solid push to affirm their place in the top four with a crucial victory over Sri Lanka 👊#NZvSL | #CWC23 | 📝: https://t.co/2hBz4ErQKl pic.twitter.com/ssQiL653dw
— ICC Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) November 9, 2023
Today’s encounter at the Batting paradise in Bangalore remained a low scoring affair. Or to frame it better, New Zealand bowlers had a good day at the office. Kane Williamson decided to chase whatever target Sri-Lanka would propose and his decision was well complimented by Kiwi bowlers.
Among all the bowlers, Trent Boult had an extra ordinary day today, leaking inly 3.70 runs per over. He removed key batters like Kusal Mendis, Sadeera Samarawickrama and Charith Asalanka for 6, 1 and 8 respectively.
Before he got into the act, Tim Southee had picked the opening wicket of Pathum Nissanka for just 2. Elsewhere, Lockie Ferguson, Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra registered a brace of wickets each. Sri-Lanka’s batting faltered very badly in a must win game for them (for the sake of pride).
Kusal Perera’s 28 ball 51 and Maheesh Theekshana’s hard fought 38 off 91 helped the Lanka lions set up 172 as the target.
In repsonse, the Blackcaps got off to a flyer with Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra scoring 86 for the 1st wicket. Conway was dismissed for 45 with no.3 Kane Williamson departing for 14 as well. Ravindra left after scoring 42 and became the highest scorer in the tournament right now.
Daryl Mitchell scored 43, Mark Chapman was run out for 7 while Glenn Phillips scored the winning runs. This 5-wicket win boosted New Zealand’s run rate by +0.743.
