Gros Islet [St Lucia], June 17 (ANI): Netherlands skipper Scott Edwards won the toss and elected to bowl first in a must-win match against Sri Lanka in their Group D match of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2024 at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium on Sunday (local time).
If Bangladesh defeats Nepal, the Netherlands could be eliminated from the 2024 T20 World Cup before their match against Sri Lanka ends. However, the Dutch must defeat Sri Lanka by a large margin to keep their prospects of qualifying for the Super 8 round alive.
The encounter also provides Sri Lanka with the opportunity to win for the first time in a campaign that has been extremely disappointing for the 2014 champions.
Speaking at the time of the toss, Edwards said, "We will bowl first. The wicket looked good, hopefully, we can restrict them to a total we can chase. We'll have to think about it in the second innings, but firstly it's important to win first. We have played a lot of good cricket, just off for a few moments, need to play the perfect game. Same team."
Sri Lanka captain Wanindu Hasaranga said, "We would have bowled first. We are playing the same team that we'd have played against Bangladesh. We haven't done our job well in the first three games, we want to finish on a high."
Netherlands (Playing XI): Michael Levitt, Max ODowd, Vikramjit Singh, Sybrand Engelbrecht, Scott Edwards(w/c), Bas de Leede, Logan van Beek, Tim Pringle, Aryan Dutt, Paul van Meekeren and Vivian Kingma.
Sri Lanka (Playing XI): Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis(w), Kamindu Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Wanindu Hasaranga(c), Angelo Mathews, Dasun Shanaka, Maheesh Theekshana, Nuwan Thushara and Matheesha Pathirana. (ANI)
