Sri Lanka beat New Zealand by 48 runs in a Super Eights game at Trent Bridge to march into the semi-finals of the ICC World T20. With this defeat, New Zealand has been put out of the tournament.
Sri Lanka won the toss and chose to bat first but lost Sanath Jayasuriya off the very first delivery he faced to Nathan McCullum who had opened the bowling. Chamara Silva was promoted up the order, but he did not last too long and was snapped up by Kyle Mills to leave Sri Lanka struggling a bit at 25/2 in the fourth over.
Then T.Dilshan counter-attacked as he has throughout the tournament, being particularly severe on Mills, while captain Kumar Sangakkara playing his role of a sheet anchor to perfection. The pair added 62 runs in less than eight overs, before Dilshan departed for a 37-ball 48. The inning at this stage, needed acceleration, and it came from one of the most unexpected quarters. Mahela Jayawardene who had seen the team through to a win against Ireland, came in and smashed a 29-ball 41 to guide the team to 158/5 on a track which was affording quite a lot of spin.
The introduction of spinners changed all that, with none except Martin Guptill even getting into double figures. The remaining eight wickets fell for 46 runs, with Mendis being the destroyer-in-chief with a haul of 3/9 in his three overs, while Udana scalping two and Muralitharan and Malinga bagged a wicket apiece.
Mendis won the man-of-the-match award for his superb spin bowling which helped the Lankans get to the semi-final of the event.