Australia’s stunning defeat to neighbours New Zealand in their opening match of the Men’s T20 World Cup 2022 has raised Sri Lanka’s hopes ahead of their Group 1 clash in Perth on Tuesday (October 25). Hosts and defending champions Australia slumped to a massive 89-run defeat to New Zealand as they started their campaign on a disappointing note. In contrast, Sri Lanka handed qualifiers Ireland a nine-wicket thrashing with Maheesh Theekshana claiming 2/19 in his quota of four overs that helped the Islanders restrict Ireland to 128/8 in 20 overs.
Theekshana said their performance against Ireland and Australia’s defeat to New Zealand have raised team’s confidence and they are ready to push the Aussies, quite vulnerable after the defeat, out of the semifinal contention. “Following the Australia-New Zealand (match), we got a win (against Ireland, we had) the confidence (in that game). We (now) have the confidence better than the Australian team, and hopefully (we can bring that into the) game tomorrow,” Theekshana said in a pre-match press conference in Perth on Monday.
He said Sri Lanka are eyeing one of the spots in the last four stage and thus a win against Australia will pave the way for that. “Yeah, it`s always nice to win a game. Our hope is always to be one of the last four teams, so we want to (qualify) as one of the last four teams, we have to beat them,” he said.
Match Details
Venue: Optus Stadium, Perth
Date & Time: October 26 at 430 PM IST
Live Streaming and TV details: Star Sports Network and Disney+ Hotstar website and app
Wicketkeeper: Kusal Mendis
Batters: Aaron Finch, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka
All-rounders: Glenn Maxwell, Wanindu Hasaranga
Bowlers: Josh Hazlewood, Adam Zampa, Maheesh Theekshana
Captain: David Warner
Vice-captain: Wanindu Hasaranga
Australia: David Warner, Aaron Finch (c), Mitchell Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade (wk), Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
Sri Lanka: Kusal Mendis (wk), Pathum Nissanka, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Dasun Shanaka (c), Wanindu Hasaranga, Chamika Karunaratne, Maheesh Theekshana, Pramod Madushan, Binura Fernando/Lahiru Kumara
Stay informed on all the latest news, real-time breaking news updates, and follow all the important headlines in india news and world News on Zee News.