Finally after 4 losses New Zealand registered a victory in their must win match and defeated Sri Lanka by 5 wickets. Now they have brighter chances for their Semi Finals berth as Pakistan need to get a huge victory against England to get into the Semis.
Sri Lanka posted 171/10 in 46.4 overs and in reply Kiwis chased down the target easily in 23.2 overs and scored 172/5.
Kiwi’s skipper Kane Williamson got the toss in his favour in their important match and then he opted to bowl first.
Lankans were unable to get a fresh start and lost wickets at regular intervals. Kusal Perera (51 runs) registered 2nd fastest fifty by a Lankan batsmen in ODI World Cup. But none of the starting players supported him. He hit 9 fours and 2 sixes in his knock.
At one point of time they lost 9 wickets in 128 runs, then Maheesh Theekshana (38 runs not out ) and Dilshan Madushanka (19 runs) contributed 43 runs for the last wicket. They batted for almost 14 overs and put valuable runs on the board. At last the whole team got 171 runs in 46.4 overs. \
Kiwi bowlers did a fantastic job by restricting the batters to a low score. Main credit goes to Trent Boult who took 3 wickets in his 10 overs by giving away just 37 runs and also got 2 maiden overs. Lockie Ferguson, Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra got 2 wickets each. Tim Southee got 1 wicket.
As the target was not that big, so to make their chances more easy Kiwi batters bashed from the starting. Devon Conway (45 runs) and Rachin Ravindra (42 runs) posted 86 runs in just 12.2 overs. They both batted brilliantly in the first powerplay. Later joined by Daryl Mitchell (43 runs) who took the bowlers from his hand and played 31 balls and hit 5 fours and 2 sixes.
In the end hard hitter Glenn Phillips (17 runs not out) hit the winning boundary and took his team to the victory and made 172 runs in just 23.2 overs by losing 5 wickets.
Angelo Mathews got 2 wickets while Maheesh Theekshana and Dushmantha Chameera got 1 wicket each.