But it wasn’t all the pitch’s fault. Some reckless batting from Craig McMillan, Brendon McCullum and Daniel Vettori made the task tough for the New Zealanders. Styris had no partners with him who were ready to bat through and when he finally strung together a partnership with James Franklin for the eighth wicket, they could not accelerate to take the score to a safe level.
Jacob Oram tried some pyrotechnics but he lasted only briefly and it was soon left to Styris to take NZ to some safety. There were a couple of doubtful decision that went against New Zealand but that doesn’t take anything away from Sri Lanka who kept mounting the pressure with some brilliant fielding. In fact, their fielding saved at least 30 runs that added extra pressure compelling the Kiwis to play some poor shots.
Sri Lanka is blessed with an abundance of all-rounders who are in form at the moment. More importantly, they are all aware of their role in the team and the overall goal. Beating this team will take something special and South Africa should thank their lucky stars that they survived the Malinga scare earlier!
With this win, though, Sri Lanka has moved to second spot and England’s hopes just got bit of a beating. But there are still mathematical possibilities.
Sri Lanka captain, Mahela Jaywardene
On his bowlers performance
'He's the leading wicket-taker right now in the tournament so obviously that's something we lost but Vaasie put his hand up and performed, Murali did the same the other bowlers backed them up pretty well and that's how we play our cricket.'
On Sanath's and Sangakkara's innings
'I thought our guys batted sensibly, I thought Sanath and Kumar batted really well, that was a very good partnership. It's always good to have these partnerships when you are chasing runs'
On an all-round win over New Zealand
'Yes, we did lose a few wickets but we always knew we had wickets in hand to make sure that we got through. We batted really well, fielded really well and had a very good game today. It was a big one for us.'
