New Zealand Win Comfortably

New Zealand have comfortably beaten Sri Lanka by seven wickets in the first ODI today at Eden Park in Auckland.

At the start of the day Stephen Fleming won the crucial toss and had no hesitation in sending Sri Lanka into bat in cloudy conditions and on a pitch that was known to give a lot of assistance to the opening bowlers which it certainly did.

Daryl Tuffey made his way back into the team after injury and had success on the third ball of the day trapping Saman Jayantha lbw for 0.

Wickets continued to fall and Sri Lanka slumped to 35/4 in the 13th over with Tuffey taking two wickets and Mills and Oram sharing one a piece.

Sanath Jayasuriya and Tillakaratne Dilshan managed to form the basis of a good partnership but just went they looked to be getting Sri Lanka back into the match Chris Cairns got a delivery to lift on Jayasuriya and he found himself spooning the ball up to Hamish Marshall in the gully where he took a comfortable catch and Jayasuriya was on his way for 43 with Sri Lanka 70/5.

Upul Chandana then joined Dilshan and together they put on 44 for the sixth wicket but when Chandana fell with the score at 114 Sri Lanka were done for and could only manage another 27 runs being all out for 141 at the end of the 42nd over.

New Zealand had a difficult six overs to face before lunch was called and in that period they lost Nathan Astle for six.

After the lunch break New Zealand continued on and got the 141 runs required easily enough with Stephen Fleming being the star putting together a well made 77* from 92 balls and being named man of the match.

Sri Lanka were disappointing in all areas and will be really looking to improve their game for the 2nd ODI in Napier on 29th December.

Score Summary

Sri Lanka 141 (T Dilshan 48, S Jayasuriya 43, C Cairns 4/33, D Tuffey 2/17, J Oram 1/23, K Mills 1/24)

New Zealand 144/3 (S Fleming 77*, M Sinclair 31, H Marshall 14*, U Chandana 1/29, C Vass 1/31)

New Zealand won by 7 wickets

Posted by James