The article speaks about the chances of New Zealand of winning the match against Sri Lanka in the opening day of World Cup cricket 2015 played in Christ Church. They had scored 331 runs in 50 overs.

World Cup Cricket 2015 started off with a bang on 14th February, 2015 with the New Zealand Sri Lanka match in Christchurch. New Zealand scored 331 runs for the loss of 6 wickets in the match. A beautiful opening ceremony took place some time before the 1st day.

 

With the brilliant batting in the first match New Zealand are hot favourites to defeat Sri Lanka in the month. In New Zealand whenever the team had scored more than 300 runs in a one-day match they never lost the match. Sri Lanka has to create history to win the match.

 

The star batsmen of New Zealand did bat very well in the opening match. Guptill scored 49 runs of 62 balls with 5 boundaries in the match.

Brendon McCullum scored 65 runs of 49 balls with 10 boundaries in the match. Williamson scored 57 runs of 65 balls with 5 boundaries and an over-boundary. Corey Anderson finished the innings with a brilliant 75 runs in 45 balls with 8 boundaries and an over-boundary.

 

The Sri Lankan bowling could not contain the aggressive batting of New Zealand. Only spinner Herath got a wicket in 9 overs and gave 37 runs. Rest of the bowlers were expensive. Mendis took 2 wickets in his 2 overs, but he was not bowled any more. Malinga went for a huge number of runs in his first spell. In the second spell he was brilliant bowling inswing Yorkers one after the other. He did also clean bowled Ronchi in one of the slog overs but over-stepped so the ball was called no-ball. He gave 84 runs of his 10 over without a wicket.

 

Sri Lanka is known for their brilliant batting. Sangakarra, Jayavardhana, Dilshan and others are capable of many heroics. Probably Sangakarra and Jayavardhana are playing their last world cup. A lot is expected from them. But as the score is too high and New Zealand’s bowling is excellent the odds are against Sri Lanka.

 

New Zealand has very impressive seam bowlers with Southee, Boult and Milne. So it is not easy to score runs easily against them. Probably Vettori is playing his last world cup. So a lot is expected from him also. The fielding of New Zealand is also good. New Zealand is rated the 3rd favourites in this world cup after Australia and South Africa.

 

Whatever may be the result of the match, the viewers are expected to enjoy a well-contested match in Christchurch.