First Semi Final World Cup 2007

Sri Lanka won by 81 runs and enters final of cricket world cup 2007

Preview

First semi final between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica, 24th April 2007. Both are equally capable teams in all aspects of cricket fielding, batting or bowling. Jayawardene and Fleming both are in good form and leading their teams nicely. Overall nice entertaining cricket would be here.

History

Overall they played 66 ODIs before, New Zealand wins 34 times and Sri Lanka 29 with 1 Tie and 2 No Results. During Last 10 ODIs both win 5 each. New Zealand have never won in the world semi finals before. Also New Zeland lost their super eight match against Sri Lanka.

Teams

Sri Lanka team : Tharanga, Jayasuriya, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Silva, Dilshan, Arnold, Vaas, Malinga, Muralitharan, Fernando
New Zealand team : Fulton, Fleming, Taylor, Styris, McMillan, Oram, McCullum, Vettori, Franklin, Bond, Patel

Sri Lanka Innings

Sri Lanka win the toss and elceted to bat first. The pitch was looking good for batting. Sri Lanka innings was moving around Jayawardene's superb knock, one of the best one-day inning. Sri Lanka lost Jayasuriya early in the innings but then Tharanga started rocking New Zealand bowling. When the partnership started building for Sri Lanka a poor shot from Sangakkara cost his wicket. Jayawardene joins with Tharanga and they started playing comfortably. Jayawardene in particular started his innings very sensibly though it was bit slow. A poor predetermied sweep shot from Tharanga brought his superb innings comes to an end. Runs are coming nicely for Sri Lanka as Jayawardene dominating New Zealand bowling and there was nice support from Dilshan and Arnold. In the end superb century from Jayawardene at the right time of the tournament help Sri Lanka manage to set target of 290 for New Zealand. This was the maiden world cup 100 from Jayawardene, 2nd against New Zealand and 9th overall. Fielding and bowling was ver poor from New Zealand and they failed to take advantage of fall of an initial wickets. They conceded 102 runs in last 10 overs.

Sri Lanka Score 289/5

Tharanga 73, Jayasuriya 1, Sangakkara 18, Jayawardene 115*, Silva 21, Dilshan 30, Arnold 14*
New Zealand Bowling:
Franklin 46/2, Bond 59/1, Oram 60/1, Vettori 51/1, Patel 62/0, Styris 8/0

New Zealand Innings

It was poor start from New Zealand in reply to the target of 290 as they lost Fleming very early. On the other hand it was superb start from Malinga and Vaas as they are not allowing Fulton and Taylor any chance. After Taylor, Fulton and Styris was looking nice and started partnership between them. But very poor shot from Styris cost big wicket for New Zealand. It was an intelligent bowling change of Dilshan in place of Murli done trick for Sri Lanka. After Styris New Zealand innings collapse as new batsman could not stay agaist comeback of Murli. They lost 5 wickets in just 11 runs gape and collapsed to 116/7 from 105/2. They neve come back in the game though last pair creates some momentun adding 59 for their partnership.

New Zealand Score 208/10

Fulton 46, Fleming 1, Taylor 9, Styris 37, McMillan 25, Oram 3, McCullum 0, Vettori 0, Franklin 30*, Bond 2, Patel 34
Sri Lanka Bowling:
Vaas 25/1, Malinga 21/1, Fernando 45/0, Muralitharan 31/4, Jayasuriya 57/2, Dilshan 22/2