On Sunday, Sri Lanka defeated Zimbabwe by a score of nine wickets, and it was all thanks to Pathum Nissanka’s magnificent unbroken 101 that the 1996 champions earned a spot in this year’s Cricket World Cup, which will be held in India.
In the Super Six stage encounter, Sri Lanka had previously knocked out Zimbabwe for a score of 165 inside of 33 overs, and Nissanka never gave the hosts a chance of victory with his brilliant performance, which lifted Sri Lanka to 169 for one.
If Zimbabwe wins their match against Scotland on Tuesday, they will have a chance to qualify.
The bowlers from Sri Lanka had done an outstanding job of bowling the hosts out, with Maheesh Theekshana taking 4-25 to earn the title of man of the match.
After being put into bat by the Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanaka, the Zimbabweans were up against it from the start and were left teetering on 30-3 courtesy to a magnificent opening spell by Dilshan Madushanka. Dasun Shanaka was the captain of the Sri Lankan team.
The home team had taken great confidence in the fact that in the previous games of the competition, they had gone through the first ten overs of each innings having lost only one wicket.
However, an enraged Madushanka delivered them a nasty awakening, reducing them to 8-2. Madushanka began by dismissing Joylord Gumbie for a duck and then Wessley Madhevere for one. After that, Madushanka dismissed Wessley Madhevere for one.
He took the important wicket of Craig Ervine for only 14 runs, which resulted in the 37-year-old player with over 100 ODI appearances for the hosts nicking the ball to wicketkeeper Kusal Mendis. He did this by hitting the ball to Mendis.
Sean Williams and Sikandar Raza were able to steady the ship, but only after the former had gotten away when Matheesha Pathirana missed an easy chance off Madushanka, which caused Sri Lankan coach Chris Silverwood to give him a withering glare. Sikandar Raza and Sean Williams were able to stabilize the situation.
They built together a fluid partnership of 68 runs, but just as they were starting to get their bearings, Raza, who was batting on 31, holed out to Madushanka off of Shanaka’s bowling, leaving the hosts with a score of 98-4.
They were able to make a brief comeback courtesy to 19 runs coming off of one of Dhananjaya’s overs, which included three sixes.
Williams reached his half century with a four that was superbly delivered in Shanaka’s following over, bringing the score to 50.
However, his euphoria was short-lived since it was quickly followed by despondency.
Shanaka made a brilliant bowling change by bringing in Theekshana for his second period in place of the pricey Dhananjaya. With just his fifth delivery, Theekshana bowled Williams for 56, bringing Shanaka’s total number of balls bowled in the game to a total of ten.
Theekshana struck once more, this time bowling Burl for 16 with a ball of a similar style to bring the score for the hosts down to 130-6. He then caught Luke Jongwe lbw for 10, bringing the score up to 144-7.
The unpredictability of Matheesha Pathirana, who took two of the remaining three Zimbabwean wickets in one over, contributed to the failure of the Zimbabwean tail to wag.