Sri Lanka beat New Zealand in cricket World Cup super eight match

COLOMBO, Sept. 27 (Xinhua) -- Sri Lanka beat New Zealand in the opening game of the "super eight" stage of the Twenty 20 cricket World Cup on Thursday after the match ended in a tie and both teams had to bowl an extra over to decide the winner.

New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first at the Pallakale stadium in the central hills of Kandy and scored 174/7 in 20 overs with opener Rob Nicol making 58 runs in 40 balls with four sixes.

For Sri Lanka Nuwan Kulasekera and debutante Akila Dhananjaya took 2 wickets each.

Chasing 175 to win, the Sri Lankans got off to a good start with openers T.M Dilshan and Captain Mahela Jayawardena making an 80 run partnership before Jayawardena lost his wicket for 44 runs. Dilshan held the innings together making 76 runs off 53 balls and once he was out the Sri Lankans folded for 174 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in 20 overs and the match was tied. Under the rules for the Twenty 20 World Cup if a match is tied then a "super over" will be bowled to decide the winner. The Sri Lankans scored 13 runs in the super over eliminator and New Zealand managed just 8 runs in the 6 balls they faced. Sri Lanka was declared the winner of the match and Dilshan was named man of the match. The super eight stage of the World Cup will see all eight teams face each other once and the top four teams will then be selected for the semi finals. The final of the Twenty 20 world cup takes place on October 7 in Colombo. Enditem

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