Sri Lanka bowl in bid to level series

Toss Sri Lanka chose to bowl v New Zealand
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details

Sri Lanka captain Angelo Mathews chose to bowl first at Bay Oval, stating that the “wicket looks extremely hard and there’s a bit of grass as well”. Kane Williamson, standing in for the injured Brendon McCullum once again, also expected the pitch to offer assistance to the seam bowlers early in the match.

For that reason Sri Lanka left out legspinner Jeffrey Vandersay in favour of fast bowler Nuwan Pradeep, meaning they were carrying three frontline quicks and two seam-bowling allrounders in their XI. Finger spinners Milinda Siriwardana and Tillakaratne Dilshan compriseed their slow-bowling options.

New Zealand retained their legspinner – Ish Sodhi – and replaced Mitchell McClenahan with Trent Boult. Both top orders remained unchanged.

The weather at Mount Maunganui was forecast to remain cloudy but dry for the duration of the match.

New Zealand: 1 Tom Latham, 2 Martin Guptill, 3 Kane Williamson (capt), 4 Ross Taylor, 5 Henry Nicholls, 6 Mitchell Santner, 7 Luke Ronchi (wk), 8 Adam Milne, 9 Matt Henry, 10 Ish Sodhi, 11 Trent Boult

Sri Lanka: 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Danushka Gunathilaka , 3 Lahiru Thirimanne, 4 Dinesh Chandimal (wk), 5 Angelo Mathews (capt), 6 Milinda Siriwardana, 7 Chamara Kapugedera, 8 Thisara Perera, 9 Nuwan Kulasekara, 10 Dushmantha Chameera, 11 Nuwan Pradeep

Andrew Fidel Fernando is ESPNcricinfo’s Sri Lanka correspondent. @andrewffernando

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.


Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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