The England Cricket team has defeated New Zealand in its second super 8 match in the World T20 Championship at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Saturday. This was the must win game for the English team and the Stuart Broad’s boys delivered. England won the match by 6 wickets.

The England team made two changes in the XI for this match. The left arm spinner Danny Briggs was included in the XI on the place of Samit Patel who was expensive in the last match, while, Tim Bresnan replaced Jade Dernbach who hadn’t bowled well in the first three matches. There was only one change in the New Zealand line up. Jacob Oram was injured. So, he was replaced by Doug Bracewell.

The New Zealand skipper Ross Taylor won the toss and decided to bat first. The English bowlers started pretty well. Martin Guptill was trapped in front of the wickets by Finn in the second over of the innings. In the 4th over, Finn removed Brendon McCullum who was a big threat for England.

McCullum came down the track and tried to hit the ball over extra cover but, the ball took the top edge of the bat and went towards the third man boundary where Luke Wright made no mistake. Nicol also departed pretty soon. He tried to slog sweep, but, due to the lack of pace on the delivery, he didn’t time the shot well and the ball went into the hands of Jonny Bairstow who was at deep square leg boundary.

James Franklin hit some good shots towards the end of the innings and he managed to score a half century. Franklin’s knock took New Zealand to a respectable total of 148. England again had a poor start in reply. Kieswetter’s poor form continued. He tried to sweep Vettori, missed the line of the ball completely and the stumps were rattled. The Kiwi team got the second breakthrough when the score was 38. Alex Hales used his feet and tried to hit Nathan McCullum over long on, but, he was beaten in the air and the ball hit the stumps.

Luke Wright and Eoin Morgan played sensibly and added 89 runs for the third wicket. Wright, in particular, was very aggressive and he hit some muscular shots down the ground. He scored his second half century in the tournament and got out after making 76 runs off 43 balls. Morgan also got out towards the end, but, the two youngsters, Bairstow and Buttler, saw England home with seven balls still remaining in the match.
England will play against Sri Lanka in its third super 8 match on the 1st of October at the same venue.