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Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Sri Lanka beats New Zealand to enter the finals.

Sri Lanka vs New Zealand Semi Final.
Sri Lanka won by 5 wickets to qualify for the finals and will await the result of India vs Pakistan match tomorrow to know their opponent.
Batting first, New Zealand got quite a slow start and were at a run rate of 4 all the time inside the power plays. McCullum got out trying to sweep the ball and then Jesse Ryder fell for Murali magic. Guptill looked solid for his 39 runs. After this Ross Taylor and Scott Styris put up a good partnership of 77 runs to take NZ close to a possibly good total and a cameo from Williamson made a 250 and above total possible. But Malinga had other plans and he took 2 wickets in the Batting powerplay to kick start the black caps doom. In the end they were all out for a modest 217 in 48.5 overs with Styris being the highest score with a responsible half century. He scored 57 runs in the end. The Black Caps lost last 6 wickets for 25 runs.
Muralitharan took the wicket of Styris off his last ball of his career in Sri Lanka. For Lanka, Malinga and Mendis took 3 wickets each and Murali took 2.

Chasing this, SL never looked troubled and they continued their domination as they did against England in the quarters. This time, Tharanga kicked off the counter attack and hit a massive six off Nathan McCullum and some fours to take SL to a blazing start. He got out after making 30 off 31 balls off a super catch by Jesse Ryder. After his dismissal, Sri Lanka never looked back with captain Kumar Sangakkara joining Dilshan in destroying the chances of the New Zealanders bid for a first finals appearance. They put on a 120 runs partnership with Dilshan scoring 73 runs and Sanga made 54 runs. Then they lost 3 wickets in 9 runs to have a little trouble and NZ tightened the screw. But in the end, Angelo Matthews and Samaraweera took them home and SL won by 5 wickets.


New Zealand 217 off 48.5 overs (Styris 57, Mendis 3-35)
Sri Lanka 220-5  (Dilshan 73, Southee 3-57) won by 5 wickets.

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