It was a great Thursday for cricket lovers at Zahur Ahmed Chaudhury Stadium in Bangladesh’s port city of Chittagong. In a late afternoon match, Netherlands nearly pulled off another miracle, before narrowly losing their game against the mighty South Africans, who should be indebted to Imran Tahir for saving them the blush. In the game that followed at the same venue, England beat Sri Lanka in the last over after successfully registering a phenomenal run chase, made possible by an unbeaten century by Alex Hales. The victory will help England remain in the reckoning for a place in the semifinals.
The match between Sri Lanka went to the wire. Sri Lanka, batting first, lost Kusal Perera in the second over for just 4 runs. When the one-drop batsman Jayawardene faced Jade Dernbach on arrival, an edge flew from his bat to Michael Lumb. Diving full length forward, Lumb brought off a great catch. Sri Lanka could well have been 4/2, but the third umpire disallowed the catch, after several TV replays. From this point onwards, Jayawardene and Dilshan took the score to 149 before Jayawardene got out. Dilshan followed him soon but not before Sri Lanka’s old hands made sumptuous contributions with the bat. Mahela Jayawardene’s 51-ball 89 was studded with 11 fours and 3 sixes. Though he played listlessly at times, Dilshan still made 55 off 47 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes. Through smaller contributions also from Thisara Perera and Angelo Matthews, Sri Lanka put on a formidable 189.
Faced with the victory target of 190, England began disastrously, losing 2 wickets with nothing on the board. Then came their savior, Alex Hales. In the company of Eoin Morgan, Hales put on 152 runs for the third wicket before Morgan lost his wicket after making an invaluable contribution of 57 off 38 balls with 7 fours and 2 sixes. Morgan and Hales started slowly and could only make 56/2 after 9 overs. To get the remaining 134 in the next 11 overs required something else. Morgan and Hales decided to go after the bowling of Mathews, Mendis, Thisara Perera and even Malinga. In the space of six overs, they had put on 86. Hales continued with Ravi Bopara, who faced only 6 balls but made 11 to ease the pressure a little bit. For his last 54 runs, Hales used only 20 balls and his unbeaten 116 off 64 balls contained 11 fours and 6 sixes. It was the first T20 hundred by an Englishman and the memorable chase culminating into victory by 6 wickets kept England’s hopes alive in the tournament.