ICC T20 World Cup 2016: New Zealand rips apart Sri Lanka in warm-up match

The warm-up match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in ICC T20 World Cup 2016  turned out to be a batting practice for the Black Caps. New Zealand won the match by a huge margin of  74 runs after a destructive batting performance from Martin Guptill, Colin Munro, Corey Anderson, and Grant Elliot. It will be an understatement to say that Sri Lanka lost the match, they never looked in the game. Sri Lankan were made to field first after New Zealand won the toss and chose to bat. Sri Lanka seemed to have misjudged both the format and the conditions cruising to an imaginary total instead of the mammoth target of 227.

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Sri Lanka lost both their openers Dinesh Chandimal and Tillakaratne Dilshan inside the powerplay overs. They barely recovered after that, scoring only 31 runs in 6 overs. They were not able to keep up with the required run rate, and ended up making it almost impossible for themselves to win the match. Adam Milne and Ish Sodhi were the top wicket-takers taking 3 and 2 wickets respectively. Sri Lanka were only able to score 152 for 7 in a total of 20 overs against New Zealand’s 226 for 5.

Before that New Zealand went for an all-out attack against, decimating Sri Lanka’s bowling attack all over the park. Munro hit 4 consecutive sixes in an over, which was the highlight of the match. New Zealand had decent partnerships despite losing wickets at regular intervals, with Guptill, Munro and Anderson scoring 41, 67 and 60 in the innings. New Zealand will be in high spirits, having proved themselves as tough contenders for the tournament, whereas Sri Lanka seem to have earned the “minnows” tag instead of being defending champions.

Brief scores:

New Zealand 226 for 4 in 20 overs (Martin Guptill 41, Corey Anderson 60, Colin Munro 67; Suranga Lakmal 1 for 50, Dasun Shanaka 2 for 48) beat Sri Lanka 152 for 7 in 20 overs (Lahiru Thirimanne 41, Chamara Kapugedara 38; Adma Milne 3 for 26, Ish Sodhi 2 for 19) by 74 runs.

(Arun Rawal is a reported with CricketCountry.)