Kiwis Squash Sri Lanka Comprehensively

A stunning rearguard from Mitchell Santner and Cole McConchie knocked Sri Lanka out of the 2026 T20 World Cup in spite of an electric start for the hosts. New Zealand sealed a crushing 61-run win on the night.

At a Premadasa Stadium that crackled with perhaps the best atmosphere of the tournament, Sri Lanka’s spinners put New Zealand’s top and middle order to the sword, reducing them to 84 for 6. But just as New Zealand’s innings looked to be petering out, Santner and McConchie responded with a fierce counter-attack in the last four overs.

McConchie began it with a takedown of Dushmantha Chameera before Santner flayed Maheesh Theekshana, till then the game’s best bowler. The last four overs produced 70 runs as the duo put on 84, the highest seventh-wicket stand in T20 World Cup history.

Punch-drunk Sri Lanka never got up off the floor following that flurry. The first ball of the innings had their talisman Pathum Nissanka succumb to Matt Henry‘s inswinger, and Charith Asalanka fell in his following over. In response, Sri Lanka retreated into their shell as New Zealand strangled them with spin.

Rachin Ravindra only had a part-time role in India but he was thrust in as the main character here. He responded with two wickets in his first over and rounded out his spell with 4 for 19 – his best T20I figures. The game was long done even as it meandered to a dispiriting conclusion for a crowd that had shown it was ready to play its part. As Sri Lanka limped to 107 for 8, and out of the tournament, the team itself simply couldn’t keep up its end of the bargain.

Theekshana rips through New Zealand on a mixed day

It was a boomerang of a day for Theekshana for the extremes it swung between. It began inauspiciously when he put down a diving catch off Tim Seifert at short third off the bowling of Dilshan Madushanka – and copped a spray from the bowler for his trouble.

The following over, Theekshana would make no such mistake off his own bowling, diving sharply forward to send Finn Allen packing. It began three sensational overs for the spinner as he engineered a New Zealand collapse, dismissing Ravindra and Mark Chapman within three balls of each other. At that stage, his figures read 3-0-9-3. However, New Zealand’s late attack sullied them somewhat, with the spinner unable to stem the run-flow as Santner took him for 21 in his last over.

Henry double-strike leaves Sri Lanka reeling

New Zealand had the momentum at the halfway mark thanks to the Santner-McConchie stand, and Henry made sure it carried on uninterrupted. Off the first ball of the chase, he produced an unplayable inswinger that burst past Nissanka’s inside edge to knock hit the stumps. It was the start of a wicket-maiden, and that dagger already plunged, he returned for his second to take another wicket to open the over. This time, it was Asalanka, a listless heave merely ballooning up in the infield.

To add insult to injury, McConchie and Santner returned to strangle Sri Lanka through half of the powerplay, their three overs inside the first six going for 14. It all combined for the hosts limping along to 20 for 2 in six, the lowest powerplay score all tournament.

Ravindra shows the way

New Zealand played most of this World Cup on the flat Chennai surfaces, but tonight’s bowling performance revealed their impressive flexibility. Coming to Colombo, they demonstrated they were fully prepared for slower, turning surfaces. McConchie was added in place of James Neesham to add bowling depth, with Ish Sodhi playing his first game of the tournament, not counting the Pakistan fixture that was washed out.

But it was Ravindra who epitomised New Zealand’s vast flexibility with a career-best performance, taking four wickets across his spell and carving the heart out of Sri Lanka’s middle order. All told, the visitors used five different spin options with only three overs of seam bowled all innings – the fewest for New Zealand in a completed T20I innings.