Skipper Jos Buttler praised the character of his England side as they breathed new life into their Twenty20 World Cup on Tuesday, but it was curtains for Afghanistan.
\nButtler played a key role with the bat in a crucial 20-run win over New Zealand at the Gabba, which propelled England into the top two of Group 1 with one round of matches left.
\nThe Black Caps, last year\u2019s beaten finalists, still top the group but they, England and Australia are all now on five points.
\nHosts and holders Australia are third and in real danger because of their vastly inferior net run rate. Only the top two sides go through to the semi-finals.
\nNew Zealand play Ireland and Australia face already eliminated Afghanistan on Friday as the fight for the last four goes down to the wire.
\nEngland, who along with the hosts were the pre-tournament favourites, clash with Asian champions Sri Lanka the next day.
\nButtler, who smashed 73 off 47 balls to lead England to 179-6 in Brisbane, said their clinical performance made up for a shock defeat earlier in the Super 12 stage to Ireland.
\n\u201cReally proud of the guys tonight, to come out with freedom and express ourselves with our talent, I was really proud of the character we showed,\u201d said the captain.
\nButtler, who won the toss and chose to bat against a side who could have sealed a spot in the last four with victory, added: \u201cWe\u2019re a really dangerous team, we\u2019ve got match-winners throughout.
\n\u201cHaving not played our best (until now), we were desperate to show that today.\u201d Buttler said it was to England\u2019s advantage that they play the day after Australia in the fight for a semi-final spot.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a bit of a benefit playing that last game to know exactly what\u2019s required of us. We\u2019re going to expect a really tough game against Sri Lanka. \u201cBut we\u2019ll go to Sydney full of confidence,\u201d Buttler added.
\nGlenn Phillips led the Black Caps fightback in their reply, but once he fell for 62, the New Zealand challenge dissolved.
\nThe Kiwis were left to rue two big dropped chances when danger man Buttler was at the crease.
\n\u201cI guess they never help, he\u2019s a very, very good player,\u201d said all-rounder Mitch Santner of the failed attempts to get Buttler out.
\n\u201cWe knew the chase was going to be a challenge but I think we put ourselves in a pretty good position to get there, we just fell a bit short.\u201d
\n\u2018All guns blazing\u2019
\nIn the first game of the day in Brisbane, Dhananjaya de Silva scored an unbeaten 66 as Sri Lanka kept their slim World Cup hopes alive with a six-wicket win over Afghanistan.
\nSri Lanka are fourth in the table, a point behind the top three. They will need to beat England and hope other results go their way.
\nAssistant coach Naveed Nawaz said it would be \u201call guns blazing\u201d for his side.
\n\u201cI think we\u2019ll have to go in a very positive mindset, thinking whatever the chance that we have to get in there, explore it,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cAnd whatever this risk that we have to take to get into the semis, we\u2019ve got to take it.\u201d Afghanistan are bottom of the group and cannot progress into the knockout stages.
\nThis was their second defeat, with two other matches washed out by the rain.
\n\u201cI\u2019d say there\u2019s been some good parts and there\u2019s been some really average parts,\u201d said Afghanistan\u2019s coach Jonathan Trott, weighing up a campaign that has just never got going.
\n\u201cWe haven\u2019t got things right,\u201d the former England batsman said.
\n\u201cWe seem to be able to get ourselves into positions but then not utilise them and actually then kick on with the batting.\u201d On Wednesday, in a doubleheader at Adelaide Oval, Zimbabwe face the winless Netherlands, and India play Bangladesh, both in Group 2.
\nWith each team having two games to go, South Africa top the table with five points and are in the driving seat for a place in the semi-finals.
\nIndia and Bangladesh are second and third respectively, both on four points. Zimbabwe have three points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skipper Jos Buttler praised the character of his England side as they breathed new life into their Twenty20 World Cup on Tuesday, but it was…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2376,"comment_status":"registered_only","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diplomacypakistan.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}