Sri Lanka triumphs over the Defending Champions

Sport

Sri Lanka produced a dominant performance to beat England by eight wickets in Bengaluru on Thursday at the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup, wrapping up the win with 24.2 overs of their chase to spare.

The result means that England’s defence of their World Cup crown is effectively over, with Jos Buttler’s team needing to win all of their remaining results, a huge swing in net run rate and other matches to go their way to stand any chance of reaching the semi-finals.

As disappointing as the defending champions were in Bengaluru, Sri Lanka were right on the money, ripping through the England attack with some excellent bowling performances from Maheesh Theekshana and the recalled pair of Lahiru Kumara and Angelo Mattews.

And they reached their lowly target of just 157 to win thanks to outstanding half-centuries from Pathum Nissanka and Sadeera Samarawickrama.

England were offered a glimmer of hope when David Willey struck twice in the opening Powerplay to remove both Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis.

Willey's impressive opening spell threatened to stunt Sri Lanka's chase, but Nissanka and Samarawickrama counterattacked to leave the Lankans in an exceptionally strong position.

And the pair put together a match-winning century stand, consolidating at first before accelerating to the win, giving their team a huge net run rate boost in the process.

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