Venue/Date: Guyana national stadium in Georgetown in Guyana. 30 April 2010. Debut: Dinesh Chandimal and Chanaka Welegedera (both are from Sri Lanka). Toss: Sri Lanka, elected to bat. Result: New Zealand won by 2 wkts. Man of the match: Nathan McCullum. New Zealand chase was going smoothly with Jesse Ryder and Martin Guptill collecting baundaries after easly dismissal of Brendon McCullum but main hero of the match was his brother Nathan McCullum who scored 16 valuable runs in pressure situation and hit a six to finish the game with 1 ball left. Sri Lanka innings revolved around Mahela Jayawardene who seemed the only Lankan batsmen to time the ball perfectly and made his career best T20 score while debutant Dinesh Chandimal played an important innings too. Match review: The 2010 ICC World Cup T20 was off to the perfect start when two cricketing power houses - Sri Lanka and New Zealand - dished out a nerve wracking affair at the Providence Stadium in Guyana. The Kiwis won the match on the day after a good bowling performance that restricted Sri Lanka to only 135/6 in their allotted 20 overs. The successful chase from the New Zealanders was riddled with twists and turns as wickets and runs abounded in liberal proportions to keep the onlookers hooked on to the action in the centre.Opting to bat in the sluggish pitch, the Lankan openers found runs hard to score initially. Sri Lanka had Mahela Jayawardene to thank for their respectable score of 135/6. The classical Jayawardene stroked the ball to all corners of the ground with clinical precision during his breezy knock of 81 from 51 balls. Barring some help from debutant Dinesh Chandimal (29), Jayawardene played the lone hand as others struggled on the slow and low pitch. While his team-mates struggled to score runs in the slow Providence Stadium wicket, experienced Jayawardene's breezy 51-ball innings was a classic example of effortless sensible hitting. He also shared a crucial 59-run fourth wicket stand with debutant Dinesh Chandimal (29 off 23) to lay the foundation for the Sri Lanka score.Skipper Kumar … [Read more...]
T20 World Cup cricket: Warm-up matches review
Warm-up matches are a golden chance for all competing teams to evaluate opposition before the big show starts but India, whose almost all players are involved in gruelling 14 match per side Indian premier league, have opted not to play any warmup game before T20 world cup 2010. Sri Lanka are another team who've chosen to skip first of their two warmup games. Barbados XI will take place of Sri Lanka against Bangladesh at Barbados before Lankans meet South Africa at the venue on 28th April. On Tuesday, there were four warm-up matches held as follow. Pakistan vs Windward XI: Pak won by 68 runs Bangladesh vs Barbados XI: Bangladesh won by 36 runs Australia vs Zimbabwe: Zimbabwe won by 1 run New Zealand vs Ireland: New Zealand won by 40 runs Warmup Matches Review: Pakistan vs Windward XI: Pakistan were to play India in warm-up World T20 but since arch rivals decided to skip all their practice games, Windward islands were called up for this first practice game to T20 World cup 2010. Windward elected to field first in this morning Twenty20 match and Mohammad Hafeez's careful half century guided visitors to a solid total.Windward islands surprised everyone by not going after the target but decided for the main batters to play out all the quota of overs. Windward lost 4 wickets, making only 92 runs. Note that Pakistan don't play any more practice game but go straight into World T20 tournament with their first match against Bangladesh on 1st May followed by Australia the next day.Scorecard: Pakistan 160/7 (Hafeez 57 (40 Ball), Fawad 24( 25 balls), Mervin Matthew 22/2) Windward 92/4 (Keddy Lesporis 24 (33 balls), Shahid Afridi 11/1) Bangladesh vs Barbados XI: But today in first warm up match, team management had to find a make shift opener and they decided on Mohammad Ashraful, the tiny but dynamic shotmaker, making a comeback after being dropped from England series.Ashraful, in company with left hander Imrul Kayes, added 64 quick runs for the first wicket and 35 of them came off his bat after Barbados inserted visitors in to bat first. Kayes continued … [Read more...]
