Cricket World Cup 2015 is beginning tomorrow with an opening game between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Christchurch. The match is scheduled to begin at 11:00 local time, 22:00 GMT and 3:30 IST in Hagley Oval. Brendon McCullum will lead New Zealand in the game and Sri Lanka will play under Angelo Mathews leadership.
Match details
Date: 14 February, 2015
Time: 11:00 NZT, 22:00 GMT
Venue: Hagley Oval, Christchurch
Preview
New Zealand
Blackcaps are in tremendous form and they are one of the top teams of 2015 world cup to win title. In recent few weeks New Zealand beat Sri Lanka and Pakistan in ODIs. NZ defeated SL in test series and One-Day series last month and in two ODI match series beat Pakistan by 2-0. So they are hot favorite to win inaugural match of 2015 world cup tomorrow.
New Zealand has got brilliant 15-man squad and in form batting line-up. Captain Brendon McCullum and Martin Guptil are in good form and providing solid starts to team. In the middle order Kane Williamson, Ross Taylor, Grant Elliott will be the key players in blackcaps squad. At the end of innings Corey Anderson will be there to hit ball all over the park.
Tim Southee, Adam Milne and Daniel Vettori will be the main bowlers for New Zealand against Sri Lanka. Corey Anderson and Grant Elliott will be the next bowlers on which Kiwi team and captain will be relying on.
Sri Lanka
The good thing about Sri Lankan side is that Lasith Malinga has joined the team and he is now fully fit to bowl his serious bowling in the world cup. SL missed him in the test series and ODIs against Kiwis last month but now he’ll be playing. The bad news for Sri Lanka is that they lost warm-up game against Zimbabwe which hurt them. But its new day and Sri Lanka have got match winners.
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Sri Lanka is not a bad form such as Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara, Tillakaratne Dilshan are in the superb form and they have scored centuries in various matches this year in test matches, ODIs in New Zealand. But the problem is middle-order.
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Sri Lanka team is not getting proper match winning or scoring innings from middle-order batsman. SL batsmen are not clicking together in a single game. Only one batsman makes big runs and whole team fails to score or even rotating strike.
Read more: Sri Lanka world cup fixtures
Hence Sri Lankan batsmen need to take responsibility to score the runs and play according situation. Bowling gets depth and power as Malinga returned to the side. Hearth, Kulasekara, Perera and Mathews have to bowl really well to get win over Kiwi in the opening game.
Watch: NZ vs SL live streaming
Expected Playing 11s
| New Zealand | Sri Lanka |
| Brendon McCullum (Captain) | Angelo Mathews (Captain) |
| Kane Williamson | Kumar Sangakkara |
| Martin Guptill | Tillakaratne Dilshan |
| Ross Taylor | Lahiru Thirimanne |
| Corey Anderson | Mahela Jayawardene |
| Grant Elliott | Nuwan Kulasekara |
| Trent Boult | Dimuth Karunaratne |
| Luke Ronchi | Jeevan Mendis |
| Tim Southee | Lasith Malinga |
| Adam Milne | Thisara Perera |
| Daniel Vettori | Rangana Herath |
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