Though Sri Lanka is a tough opponent, New Zealand could still pick their chance of win if they are able to recreate the performance they had against South Africa. This is the best chance for Kiwis to step up and show their "class" to the entire cricket world.
First semi-final will soon get started in few hours at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. The home crowd's support will be an additional advantage for Sri Lanka, and the team will expect to win the match to position themselves in the final. But, they must be aware that New Zealand will be highly energized with their outstanding win against South Africa. It is expected to be an electrifying competition between two teams, though Sri Lanka is already the hot favourite to win the match.
Sri Lanka Vs New Zealand: Face-to-Face
Sri Lanka and New Zealand played with each other 73 times, and surprisingly, it's New Zealand who won the matches most of the times. New Zealand have defeated Sri Lanka 35 times. In 33 occasions, Sri Lanka have embraced the victory. The overall stats does not show the dominance of one team on other. However, The figure for all matches played after 1996 tells the different story. 1 January 1996 onwards, these two teams meet 41 times in the cricket field, where Sri Lanka won 25 times and lost only 13 times.
The second table shows how the dominating power shifted from New Zealand to Sri Lanka post 1996. This year saw the rise of Sri Lanka as the super power in the cricket, when they were also crowned as the world champion. New Zealand did well to beat them 13 times, but they were never good enough to beat them in important matches. The recent biggest win New Zealand had against Sri Lanka was in 2009 ICC Champions trophy in South Africa, where Kiwis made huge 1st inning total of 315 to defeat Sri Lanka by 38 runs (see scorecard). New Zealand made to the final of the tournament, where they were defeated by Australia by 6 wickets.
New Zealand Vs Sri Lanka: in World Cups
Sri Lanka have upper hand in most of the world cup meets with New Zealand. 5 wins in 8 matches give Sri Lanka another reason to be comfortable in today's semifinal.
This will also be their second encounter of 2011 world cup. Sri Lanka defeated them in the group stage by huge 112 runs. In reply of Lankan's 265 runs, Kiwis were all out for only 153 runs. May be Kiwis will learn from their last mistakes and come strongly in this match.
New Zealand Vs Sri Lanka: in R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo
New Zealand have a very bad record against Sri Lanka in R. Premadasa Stadium. They have lost 5 out of 7 matches, while managing only 1 win.
It seems most of the records are against New Zealand, and everything points towards the possibility of another easy victory for Sri Lanka. But, do we always believe in statistics? As we say everytime, the team that play better at the particular day win, so we can still hope that New Zealand can snatch a win out of Sri Lankan paws. May the best team win.
