Sri Lanka vs. New Zealand: Date, Live Stream, TV Info, Cricket World Cup Preview
Co-hosts New Zealand will get the 2015 Cricket World Cup underway as they face a tricky clash with Sri Lanka in Christchurch.
The Black Caps will be hoping that a tournament on home soil can help them abate their longstanding reputation as a team incapable of making that final step. It’s a modus operandi that’ll be the same for their opening-day opponents, who have finished runners-up in the previous two World Cup finals.
The buzz in Christchurch from the watching spectators should add to what is a very special occasion and with some classy players on show this is definitely not a match to be missed. Here’s all the information you need to ensure you don’t and a closer look at the two teams involved ahead of the opening toss.
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Date: Friday, Feb. 13
Time: 10 p.m. (GMT)
Live Stream: Sky Go (UK)
TV Info: Sky Sports 2 (UK)
Black Caps Looking to Shine on Home Soil
While New Zealand have long been considered one of the outsiders for glory at previous World Cups, they typically step up their game a notch on the big stage and make it out of the group stages. In the previous two tournaments they’ve exceeded expectations to finish third and fourth but this time round, they’re one of the rightful favourites.
Big-hitting Brendon McCullum remains the Black Caps’ star performer but now he has a host of quality operators capable of lending some admirable support too. Kane Williamson is a very astute operator at No. 3 and with the ball, Tim Southee, Trent Boult and Daniel Vettori are all canny limited-overs players.
As noted by Freddie Wilde of ESPN Cricinfo, the New Zealand team is wonderfully balanced:
The aforementioned win against South Africa—who are one of the favourites for the title themselves—was an emphatic indication of their quality. Corbin Middlemas of ABC thinks that the circumstances bode well for the Black Caps to better their usual semi-final showing:
"3 days out from the #CWC15, does anybody else want to declare NZ a roughy? Coming off their best year yet, co-hosts; a semi-final is par
— Corbin Middlemas (@CorbinMiddlemas) February 11, 2015"
Sri Lanka will have just as much willingness to sample glory, though. The crux of this side remains intact from the previous World Cup—when they lost in the final to India—while the likes of Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara were around eight years ago when they were beaten by Australia in the 2007 final. For those players, there will be sense of unfinished business here.
But while all the permutations seem to be favouring their opening-day opponents, the same couldn’t be said for the Sri Lankans. The hard, flat, bouncy pitches will not favour the array of intricate spin bowling talents that makes this team such formidable limited-overs opponents and that’s something that’s been on show during their preparations.
Indeed, as we can see here courtesy of the ICC Twitter account, the two teams couldn’t have had more contrasting fortunes in the build-up to this one:
With men like Sangakkara and Jayawardene in situ—still two of the top batsmen around—as well as the express pace of Lasith Malinga, they’re still a team to be taken very seriously. The former in particular has been in wonderful recent form and has the ability to dictate the pace of an innings with his array of delectable strokes.
As noted by Island Cricket, Sangakkara’s just short of another landmark to go with the many he’s already accrued throughout his distinguished career:
There’s always a chance with Sri Lanka and if one of the aforementioned trio of stars puts in a mercurial display, then they could spring a surprise in the tournament opener. But there are perennial concerns about certain areas of this lineup and they were emphatically exposed against Zimbabwe in that embarrassing warm-up defeat.
New Zealand are a side that look primed for a genuine shot at glory at this tournament and their win over South Africa will give them some superb momentum going into this one. With that in mind, expect McCullum’s men to start their tournament with a swagger against Sri Lanka.
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