Martin Guptill’s unbeaten 30-ball 93 and Matt Henry’s 4 for 33 helped New Zealand beat Sri Lanka by ten wickets in the second One-Day International at the Hagley Oval in Christchurch
on Monday (December 28).
Having chosen to bat first, Sri Lanka was bowled out for 117 in 27.4 overs as Henry and Mitchell McClenaghan (3 for 32) picked up seven wickets between them. After that, Guptill and Tom Latham had an unbroken 118-run stand in 8.2 overs as New Zealand chased down the target and took a 2-0 lead in the five-match series.
Guptill attacked the Sri Lankans after being dropped off the first ball he faced. His innings included nine fours and eight sixes as he maintained a strike rate of 310.00. He was particularly severe on Dushmantha Chameera, whom he hit for 26 runs in one over.
Guptill reached 46 off 12 balls, but two yorkers from Nuwan Kulasekara, who was earlier taken for 14 runs in one over, denied the batsman the chance to record the fastest fifty.
Guptill took five balls to reach his 50, one behind the world record – 16 balls –held by AB de Villiers.
Guptill did, however, break the New Zealand record for the fastest fifty, going one better than Brendon McCullum's best.
McCullum did not open the New Zealand batting after injuring himself when he crashed into the fence while trying to cut off a boundary. Instead, Latham took up the opening duties and hit the winning run to be unbeaten on 17 from 20 balls.
Afterwards, McCullum called Guptill “superb”, while Angelo Mathews described his side's performance as “embarrassing” and “pathetic”.
For Sri Lanka, it was a poor performance after it had expressed a desire to gain some pride following a seven-wicket loss in the first ODI.
“It was embarrassing. Once again a pathetic display by the whole batting unit,” said Mathews. “We just couldn't handle it. It didn't swing or seam or bounce. It was just bad shot selection.”
When he had won the toss and elected to bat, Mathews described the pitch as “good for batting”. But Sri Lanka could not handle Henry. He struck in the fourth over when Tillakaratne Dilshan was caught at first slip by Ross Taylor, and the wickets tumbled regularly from there.
Sri Lanka still looked capable of posting a respectable score when it reached 81 for 5 in the 18th over, but it then lost three wickets for no runs from there. Kulasekara was Sri Lanka’s highest scorer with 19.
