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Lankans pull one back against Zimbabwe

After two successive defeats in the tournament it was a simple choice for the Lankans: win or face elimination. For the Zimbabweans, it was one more victory and on to the knockout stage of the World Cup for the first time.

The Lankans gave a very good account of themselves in the field with some disciplined bowling backed by excellent fielding to restrict Zimbabwe to 197 in their allotted 50 overs.

Eric Upashantha, Pramodaya Wickremasinghe and Chaminda Vaas returned with decent figures to restrict the Africans who never looked threatening. Except for the Flower brothers and some late-order hitting by Stuart Carlisle and Eddo Brandes, all the other batsmen faltered on a wicket that wasn't so easy to play on.

The Lankans started off on a bad note, losing Sanath Jayasuriya early on with the score at only 13. Roshan Mahanama and Marvan Atapattu then put on 62 runs for the second wicket and steadied the innings before Mahanama inner-edged one from Guy Whittal onto his stumps.

Then vice-captain Aravinda D'Silva and skipper Arjuna Ranatunga departed within the space of five overs to leave the match wide open once again.

Mahela Jayawardene and Atapattu got together to repair the damage and their 42-run stand brought the Lankans closer to victory. Some lusty hitting by Romesh Kaluwitharana and Vaas finally helped Sri Lanka reach the target with four overs to spare.

The Sri Lankans are still far from assured of a place in the Super Six. Like the Indians, they also have to win all their remaining group matches -- against India and Kenya -- to get to the next phase.

Zimbabwe have to win one of their two remaining encounters, against England and South Africa, to get to the knockout phase.

Though Sri Lanka won the match and picked up their first points of the tournament, they looked far from the team that won the tournament last time around.

Scoreboard