2.57pm So three days in and we're yet to see a compelling game. They've all been one-sided drabs. Who is really going to lift this World Cup into orbit? Afghanistan are looking okay so far, even though they lost the openers to Mitch Starc and Pat Cummins. Can they get past the 200-run mark first? Looking good currently. Join Peter Della Penna and Saurabh Somani on our Live Coverage. Time to sign-off from here for the moment. Sharda Ugra and Andrew Fidel Fernando will be up and running with post-match stories from Cardiff, so do come back for that and much more. For the moment, this is Shashank Kishore saying goodbye on behalf of Venkat Raghav and Hemant Brar. Cheers guys
Our post-match show with Tillakaratne Dilshan and Daren Ganga is now live.
Kane Williamson: "Great start, superb from the bowlers. I don't think there's a problem occasionally playing on such pitches. There was something on offer but it was slowish movement, if you were old school, who knows, you could've scored a few more. We were fortunate to get some early wickets. There's some variety in our attack, there are different wickets - some high-scoring, some like this, so we need to have balanced attack. We didn't have too many conversations about net-run-rates, those two at the top (Guptill and Munro) are aggressive anyway. Nice that they could go out and play some few shots, Munro played with freedom which was outstanding. It was a good allround performance, focus turns quickly to the next match in a few days time on a different surface."
Dimuth Karunaratne: "136 is never going to be enough in these conditions. Me and Thisara batted well, we needed to get partnerships. It was a good toss to win, sadly I lost it. It was seaming and swinging in the morning, so they had the advantage. They also had the bowlers to use it. Everyone comes out to watch entertaining cricket, so hopefully we will get good batting wickets later on. I'm not sure the batters are low on confidence, batted well in practice games, trained hard. Need to think about our game and approach. We're trying to play our shots early, need to give ourselves a chance to get set and then score runs."
2.50pm Shocker of a game for Sri Lanka. Whatever could go wrong, went wrong. The batsmen were tested against quality swing and seam, and they failed on multiple counts on a greentop. The 2015 finalists may not be spoken of in the same breath as England or India, but today, they've made an emphatic statement. The fact that they were still keen on pinching the second with just a handful of runs needed was a subtle message: they're hungry, or as Shane Warne likes to believe 'thirsty.'
Matt Henry is the Player of the Match for his three-for. It rocked Sri Lanka's top order and they never really recovered. Kane Williamson's decision to bowl a fifth over in his first spell proved to be a gamechanger as it yielded the massive strikes of Kusal Perera and Kusal Mendis.
"Good to go out there on a green surface," Henry says. "You don't get too many one-day wickets like that (laughs). Warm-up game, I didn't try and let it affect me too much. This is a long tournament. Our fielders were brilliant today, it means a lot to our bowling attack. I enjoyed my time at Kent, had a lot of success with white and red-ball, always good to come back here to play cricket."
END OF OVER:16 | 16 Runs | NZ: 136/0 (1 run required from 34 overs, RR: 8.50, RRR: 0.02)
- Martin Guptill73 (51b)
- Colin Munro57 (46b)
- Lasith Malinga5-0-46-0
- Jeevan Mendis1-0-10-0
Malinga comes back on.
END OF OVER:15 | 11 Runs | NZ: 120/0 (17 runs required from 35 overs, RR: 8.00, RRR: 0.48)
- Martin Guptill60 (45b)
- Colin Munro56 (45b)
- Jeevan Mendis1-0-10-0
- Thisara Perera3-0-25-0
Moorthy: "Why don't you just refer to NLTC Perera as Thisara Parera and BMAJ Mendis as Jeevan Mendis." -- Can be annoying. An issue we've raised. Hopefully a solution soon.
Time for drinks
Jeevan Mendis with his legspin
END OF OVER:14 | 8 Runs | NZ: 109/0 (28 runs required from 36 overs, RR: 7.78, RRR: 0.77)
- Colin Munro55 (44b)
- Martin Guptill51 (40b)
- Thisara Perera3-0-25-0
- Isuru Udana3-0-24-0
END OF OVER:13 | 10 Runs | NZ: 101/0 (36 runs required from 37 overs, RR: 7.76, RRR: 0.97)
- Martin Guptill50 (39b)
- Colin Munro48 (39b)
- Isuru Udana3-0-24-0
- Thisara Perera2-0-17-0
khaled: "Is Srilanka saving the spinners for next match?" -- Possible they just want the fast bowler to clock in a few miles
John: "Seems funny that England made what seemed like a string statement in the first game and yet look like being in no better than third place and possibly in fourth after tonight. There's a long way to go, of course, and you'd say that SA were almost certainly the strongest of the losing sides in the first four games. That holds true if Australia defeat Afghanistan and possibly even if they don't."