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Top Story: Australia put World Cup campaign back on track

Australia chased down Sri Lanka’s sub-par 209 with some ease, cantering to a five-wicket win in Lucknow to revive their flagging World Cup campaign. The result leaves Sri Lanka second-last on the table with three losses from three, and essentially needing only wins from hereon to stand a chance of making it to the semi-finals.

For Australia, it was a victory set up by a tenacious bowling effort, and then capped off by a chase exemplified by its clarity of thought. Adam Zampa was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 4 for 47, while Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc grabbed two apiece. Though special mention should go to David Warner for two outstanding catches in the deep to dismiss Pathum Nissanka and Kusal Mendis, wickets which in many ways catalysed Sri Lanka’s downfall. It was also a fielding effort that was a welcome change for Australia, after their opening defeats to India and South Africa had been marked by some uncharacteristically poor catching.

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Match analysis: Zampa hangs in there to help turn Australia’s fortunes

Adam Zampa had come into this game with figures of 1 for 123 from the 18 overs he had bowled across the defeats to India and South Africa. He had already been struggling with hip, neck and shoulder niggles, and in the lead-up to this game had suffered a back spasm as well.

That deadly cocktail of form and fitness may have led other teams to bench Zampa and pick another spinner, but Australia had no other spinner to turn to. Here he was, therefore, feeling – as he put it at his post-match press conference – “like adrenaline was going to get me through and a bit of Panadeine Forte.”

Read the full analysis from Karthik Krishnaswamy in Lucknow

Must Watch: Tom Moody on Adam Zampa

News headlines

Bangladesh are hopeful that Shakib Al Hasan will be fit to face India after he suffered a quad strain against New Zealand

England legspinner Adil Rashid insists their belief has not been dented by the shock defeat against Afghanistan which has left their title defence in the balance.

The ICC will review the criticism of Pakistan’s team director Mickey Arthur after he said the World Cup did not feel like a global tournament.

Match preview

South Africa were stunned by Netherlands at last year’s Men’s T20 World Cup in Australia. So when the two sides meet in Dharamsala on Tuesday, they will not be looking at Netherlands as a weaker opponent. At the same time, they should not be under any pressure. This time it’s a longer format, which reduces the chances of an upset. When these sides played two ODIs earlier this year, South Africa thrashed Netherlands by eight wickets and 146 runs.

A bigger reason, perhaps, is South Africa’s recent form – they are on a five-match winning streak. In each of those games, they batted first, smashed more than 300, crossed 400 twice, and won by 100-plus runs. Arguably, they have the strongest batting unit at this World Cup.

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South Africa (probable): 1 Quinton de Kock (wk), 2 Temba Bavuma (capt), 3 Rassie van der Dussen, 4 Aiden Markram, 5 David Miller, 6 Heinrich Klaasen, 7 Marco Jansen, 8 Kagiso Rabada, 9 Keshav Maharaj, 10 Lungi Ngidi, 11 Tabraiz Shamsi/Gerald Coetzee

Netherlands (probable): 1 Vikramjit Singh, 2 Max O’Dowd, 3 Colin Ackermann, 4 Bas de Leede, 5 Teja Nidamanuru, 6 Scott Edwards (capt & wk), 7 Sybrand Engelbrecht, 8 Roelof van der Merwe, 9 Logan van Beek/Ryan Klein, 10 Aryan Dutt, 11 Paul van Meekeren