England v Sri Lanka- Match Highlights

England wins the match by 4 wickets and qualifies for the Semi-Finals and Australia has been knocked out of the T20 World Cup.

Sri Lanka won the toss and opt to bat. Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis came up with positive intent as the duo took on the English bowlers in the powerplay. They added 39 runs for the first wicket in no time. Liam Livingstone took a very good outfield catch to break this stand in the 4th over as Mendis (18 off 14) was taken care of by Chris Woakes. 

Dhananjaya de Silva (9 off 11) and Charith Asalanka (8 off 9) didn’t contribute much. But from the other end, Nissanka kept on going with his glorious shots as he notched up his 9th T20I fifty. Nissanka and Bhanuka Rajapaksa added 34 runs for the fourth wicket, and it was Adil Rashid who broke this partnership by picking the well-set Nissanka (67 off 45) in the 16th over.

While Dasun Shanaka (3 off 8) failed to play a big knock, Bhanuka did well to score a run-a-ball 22 as the pitch got quite slower in the backend of their innings. England were successful in drying up the runs in the fag end of the Lankan innings as Mark Wood finished off with a three-wicket over, which also included the run-out of Wanindu Hasaranga (9 off 9). 

England used seven bowlers, in which Mark Wood (3-0-26-3), Adil Rashid (4-0-16-1), Ben Stokes (3-0-24-1), Sam Curran (4-0-27-1), and Chris Woakes (3-0-24-1) were successful in getting wickets.

In reply, Alex Hales and Jos Buttler gave a flying start to England after seeing off Mahesh Theekshana in the first over of the innings. Hales and Buttler smoked the bowlers apart in the star.

The first wicket to go was Jos Buttler when England was at 75. It was Wanindu Hasaranga with the first breakthrough and England lost wickets at regular intervals. Hales (47 off 30) soon departed too. Lahiru Kumara, and Dhanajaya de Silva joined the party and removed the middle order of England barring Ben Stokes who had come up the order at one-down in place of an injured Dawid Malan.

England needed 21 runs from the last 18 balls in the end and it was Stokes who stayed from one end and steered the scoreboard deeper. Sri Lanka was terrific with the change-ups and made it really hard for England. They needed 5 runs off the last over, Chris Woakes scored the winning runs with Stokes at the other end.

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