Australia eliminated from T20 World Cup, England beat Sri Lanka

Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign is officially over, after England defeated Sri Lanka in Sydney.

Despite finishing on the same number of points as both New Zealand and England, Australia’s poor net run rate relegated the home side to third.

Only the top two teams in each group qualify for the semi finals.

How the match went

Sri Lanka’s skipper Dasun Shanaka won the toss and elected to bat.

Incidentally, Sri Lanka have not beaten England in a T20 since 2014.

They asked England to field, conscious that all five previous games at the ground during the World Cup had been won by the team batting first.

The Lankans started aggressively but the 39-run opening stand came to an end when Kusal Mendis (18) was caught by Livingstone off Chris Woakes.

However, the momentum didn’t flag as Sri Lanka scored 52 in just 5 overs with Pathum Nissanka on 31, having smashed three sixes.

Sri Lanka looked on track for a big total when they reached 2/80 after 10 overs.

However, when the aggressive Pathum Nissanka fell for 67, they crumbled to 141 for 8.

Sri Lanka never regained momentum, making just 25 off the last five overs with three wickets falling in the final over.

The man of the moment for England was Mark Wood who took 3-26.

In reply, Alex Hales and Jos Buttler plundered 70 off the six-over powerplay, smashing 11 boundaries in the process.

Buttler (28) and Hales (47) were out in the space of three overs, with the spin of Wanindu Hasaranga accounting for both of them.

Harry Brook (4) quickly followed, caught and bowled by De Silva.

Then Livingstone (4) threw his wicket away with a reckless slog and Moeen Ali (1) soon joined them back in the pavilion.

Suddenly England collapsed to 5/111 under pressure from the Sri Lankan spin attack and it went to the wire.

But Stokes kept his cool as the wickets tumbled and steered his side into the semi-finals alongside Woakes.

Battling severe pressure , England reached their target with two balls to spare.

The victory was not enough to dethrone New Zealand at the top of the table with England settling for second.

The fate of Group 1 will be determined on Sunday.

Sri Lanka XI: Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis (wk), Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Bhanuka Rajapaksa, Chamika Karunaratne, Dasun Shanaka (c), Wanindu Hasaranga, Maheesh Theekshana, Kasun Rajitha, Lahiru Kumara

England XI: Alex Hales, Jos Buttler (c) (wk), Dawid Malan, Ben Stokes, Harry Brook, Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali, Sam Curran, Chris Woakes, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood

England 144 for 6 (Hales 49, Stokes 42*) beat Sri Lanka 141 for 8 (Nissanka 67, Wood 3-26) by four wickets