With seven overs remaining in their innings, New Zealand were 86 for 6 after being put in to bat by Sri Lanka. Khettarama, as the ground is known to locals, was partying in the stands. The decibel levels were out of control with the DJ setting the bass sky-high, making the entire ground throb with excitement, reports Espncricinfo.
New Zealand's hopes rested in the hands of their captain Mitchell Santner alongside Cole McConchie, who had not batted in the T20 World Cup until Wednesday after replacing the injured Michael Bracewell. But in this must-win game, Santner was the main man. He has this innate ability to remain both impervious to the noise and unaffected by the occasion.
Santner is among the smartest players and tacticians in cricket. New Zealand might not have played a single match this World Cup in Sri Lanka, with their previous match against Pakistan abandoned, but Santner and Co. had quickly grasped the most important thing: the varying size of the boundaries. On one side, the square boundary was 75 metres, while the opposite was 62 metres.
"Looking at the dimensions of the ground, I think whoever can be the smartest to the big side [of the ground] is going to have a pretty good day," Santner said after Sri Lanka elected to field.
With Dushmantha Chameera and Maheesh Theekshana rattling New Zealand, Santner and McConchie had to remain resolute in the initial few overs of their partnership when the run flow had been reduced to a trickle. Still, with exaggerated spin on offer, Santner had worked out that 150 could be a match-winning score. At 98 for 6 after 16 overs, the time had come to take off.
Having bowled aggressively at the stumps and outside off in the first two overs, Chameera returned to bowl his third from the Maligawatta End. Facing him was McConchie, who took advantage of the short leg-side boundary, hitting two sixes in three balls. The second six came off a 120kph slower ball, when McConchie was able to clear the boundary with a powerful flick.
He was proactive again on the last ball of the over for which Chameera went around the stumps. Bowling from wide of the crease, Chameera sent a slow cutter wide of off stump, but McConchie moved quickly to cut the ball past the two point fielders while also beating the deep cover to make it an 18-run over.
HOW CRUCIAL WAS THE SANTNER-MCCONCHIE STAND?
Santner then attacked Theekshana, who froze under pressure and totally failed to execute the plan: bowl wide of Santner's off stump so he could not access the shorter leg-side boundary. Instead, he bowled into Santner's hitting arc including a full toss that was pinged high over long-on. It was a 21-run over. Chameera and Dilshan Madushanka failed to close the floodgates in the last two as Santner turned the match on its head - the 19th went for 19 and the 20th for 12.
Rachin Ravindra, who scored a 22-ball 32 and picked up four wickets to bag the Player-of-the-Match award, explained the challenge of exploiting the shorter boundary. "When you see a boundary like that, the natural tendency is, as a bowling team, to defend it," he said. "And you [the batter] have got to be creative with the angles you hit and places you stand in the crease to be able to access that.
"Those two were brilliant. Cole was across the stumps and being able to pick up a legcutter over midwicket with his wrist was fantastic. That stuff is an incredible skill and the way they absorbed [the pressure] for a period of time and were clear about the way they want to go about it in the last four or five overs was extremely pleasing to see."
In total, New Zealand exploited the shorter leg-side boundary to score 80 runs. Sri Lanka captain Dasun Shanaka said it was "disheartening" to see his bowlers fail to execute the plans as soon as Santner and McConchie pressed the accelerator.
