- September 5, 2009
- article by admin
- 0 comments
Jacob Oram celebrates the wicket of Nuwan Kulasekera, Sri Lanka v New Zealand, 1st Twenty20, Colombo, September 2, 2009
Despite Tilakaratne Dilshan’s continuous batting exuberance, the Sri Lankan side collapsed like nine pins while chasing a target of 142 for a win against New Zealand to lose the first T20I by three runs.
With only 142 needed for a win, the Sri Lankan side had raced off to 67/2 in less than seven overs, and needed only 75 runs in 13 overs for a win with eight wickets standing. A walk in the park? Not when you have a middle-order like the Lankans’ in this game. It capitulated like nine pins and there was not a single player who could guide the team to a victory after the Dilshan blitzkrieg (57 off 28 deliveries).
Earlier, the Kiwis had scraped their way up to 141 as well. Again, it was a one-man show, with Ross Taylor taking up the attack to the Lankan spinners. He smashed a 45-ball 60, but there was only Martin Guptill to support him with an innings of 29. Jesse Ryder was the only other batsman to get to double figures with a 13 to his name!
Daniel Vettori who had successfully throttled Read the rest of this entry...
Courtesy Cricinfo and Getty
Pakistan has won the second edition of the ICC World T20 by beating Sri Lanka rather easily by eight wickets in the finals. Sri Lanka had gone into the game having not a single game, but were outplayed by a team that batted, bowled and fielded much better than them.
Sri Lanka had opted to bat first, but lost wickets at regular intervals to slump at 70/6 and with only Kumar Sangakkara at the crease. In partnership with Angelo Mathews, Sangakkara added a nice little 68 to get the Lankans to 138 in their allotted 20 overs. And on a pitch that looked to have something for the pace bowlers, the target looked a trifle dicey.
However, the Pakistani batsmen were disciplined, without being too flashy and yet, scored the runs at the desired rate. The openers, Kamran Akmal and Shahzaib Hasan did get out in quick succession, but Shahid Afridi’s continuing form and Shoaib Malik’s cool head took the Pakistanis past the total and won them the tournament.
Afridi’s knock won him the man-of-the-match, as did his 1/20 in the four overs, while T.Dilshan won the man-of-the-series for being the highest scorer of the tournament. It was a pity that he had to end up being on the losing side today!
Looks like the duo has been declared joint winners eh? No, that is just posing for the camera ops, but, to be frank, given the things both teams have gone through in the last couple of months, won’t it be a bad idea to do so!?
The last such major tournament which had seen the two teams being declared winners together was the Champions Trophy of 2002, when India and Sri Lanka played the same game twice over, and yet, couldn’t complete it! And no, they did not resume it from where it had been left off on the previous day, but actually went on to restart it; which clearly said that the administrators had lost their heads while framing the rules.
Had such a rule existed in the 1999 World Cup – in England – one can be rest assured that half the games would have been registered as no results through the duration of the tournament!
Coming back to the game in question, Pakistan has been quarantined in the cricketing world after being termed unsafe for travellers, while Sri Lanka had been involved in an unfortunate terrorist attack and have been no better in terms of being terrorism-ravaged.
The picture makes perfect cricket-romantic sense to me!
Match 8 - Group C
Who: Australia v Sri Lanka
Where: Nottingham
When: Jun 8, 2009
Winner: Sri Lanka won by 6 wickets (with 6 balls remaining)
Australia are Out of the Tournament
A worried Ricky Ponting in the dug-out, Australia v Sri Lanka, ICC World Twenty20, Trent Bridge, June 8, 2009
- June 9, 2009
- article by JM
- 1 comments
