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Sa'adi Thawfeeq reporting from Dambulla

DAMBULLA, Monday - Sri Lanka's hopes of entering the final of the Bank Alfalah Cup tri-nation one-day final hung in the balance after they lost their last preliminary round match to New Zealand by nine runs in a tense finish at the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium here today. Having restricted New Zealand to a modest total of 156 for eight in 50 overs, Sri Lanka struggled to overcome that score and finally succumbed to 147 all out in 49.1 overs.

The loss left Sri Lanka who collected a bonus point today, second in the table with 11 points from four matches. New Zealand with 12 points from three games and with a match in hand against Pakistan tomorrow are already through to Friday's final. Pakistan are third with seven points with one match to play. If Sri Lanka are to qualify for the final they will have to depend on New Zealand to beat Pakistan tomorrow.

Once again it has boiled down to Sri Lanka having to depend on the performances of other teams for their entry into the final. They went through a similar situation qualifying for the World Cup semi-finals in South Africa two months ago.

Sri Lanka required to score 10 runs off the last 12 balls. But no. 11 Prabath Nissanka played down a maiden over to Kyle Mills leaving Mahela Jayawardene the task of scoring the runs off the last over. With a packed leg side field, Jayawardene took the gamble to reverse sweep the first ball of the final over bowled by Scott Styris to the vacant off side. But he only succeeded in top edging the ball to Chris Harris at backward point and it was all over.

Jayawardene made a top score of 38 off 102 balls with one four. The second highest scorer for Sri Lanka was Romesh Kaluwitharana with 18.

Left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori ran through the unstable middle-order capturing a career best four wickets for 14 runs off 10 overs to take the man-of-the-match award. He took the crucial wickets of Marvan Atapattu (13), Kumar Sangakkara (11), and Tillakaratne Dilshan (7) before returning for his fourth and final spell to take Muralitharan's wicket late in the innings. Victory for New Zealand seemed unlikely when they were restricted to 156-8 after being put into bat first by Atapattu.

The Sri Lankan spinners kept a strangle hold on the batting pinning them down to 109-6 in the 45th over. But wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum hit a few lusty blows in the last five overs to swell the total over the 150-mark.

McCullum struck three sixes and two fours to make a top score of 47 not out off 63 balls as New Zealand added 47 runs off the last five overs. He hit the left-arm spin of Jayasuriya for two sixes in one over and then also took a six off leg-spinner Kaushal Lokuarachchi to give a badly needed boost to the New Zealand total.

With Kyle Mills who scored 17, McCullum added 50 for the seventh wicket off 82 balls after New Zealand had somewhat lost their way and were 88 for six in the 36th over.

Prabath Nissanka provided Sri Lanka with the initial breakthrough by having Chris Nevin caught at second slip by Sangakkara for eight in the sixth over. From there onwards wickets continued to fall at regular intervals as New Zealand failed to get any big partnerships going.

Three run outs didn't help their cause either as the spinners bowled to their field and kept everything so tight that getting the ball out of the square seemed a big task for the batsmen. Until McCullum's innings, the New Zealand top order had hit only three fours and a six. Jayasuriya who finished with two wickets for 35, picked up his 250th wicket in one-day internationals when he had Chris Cairns top edging a sweep to Dilshan at short fine leg.

Vaas though unlucky and without a wicket so far in the tournament bowled economically conceding just 11 runs in his eight overs. Muralitharan picked up two more to take his tally in the tournament to 13 wickets.

We gave away too many runs - Atapattu

Sri Lanka captain Atapattu said where things went wrong for his side was in the last four overs of the New Zealand innings where as much as 40 runs were scored. "That made the difference," he said.

"But looking at the positive side of things Mahela handled the situation really well. He showed some maturity and stayed till the end. It was a big plus point. The way the lower order is batting is also encouraging," said Atapattu. "Taking the decision to field first would not have changed the result of the match. It would have been nice if we had won and qualified for the final. But we will have to take it as it comes. We are looking at the Kiwis to win again tomorrow for us to play in the final. The feeling inside is good because I have seen the team much despondent than this in the recent past. I am not too worried about what has really happened," he said.

New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming said that he wanted to keep the momentum going and that they would take the match against Pakistan today as seriously as possible.

"We don't win a lot of matches overseas under these conditions and we want to win everything. That will be the attitude for us," said Fleming who was making his 200th one-day international appearance for his country. He said it was a line call between McCullum (who scored 47 not out and held four catches) and Vettori for the man-of-the-match award. Fleming said with balls popping up at odd occasions from the spinners it was impossible to play one-day cricket on this type of wickets. He said his team had got on the right side of it on two out of three occasions and hopefully they could do it again tomorrow and in the final.

"There are two subcontinent sides who are pretty good at playing on slow turning wickets, but they can't chase 150 - 170. So that tells you the story," said Fleming.

NEW ZEALAND

 C.J. Nevin c Sangakkara b Nissanka          8
S.P. Fleming lbw b Muralitharan                16
L. Vincent run out                                 12
S.B. Styris c Kaluwitharana b Muralitharan 29
C.L. Cairns c Dilshan b Jayasuriya              9
C.Z. Harris run out                                  4
B.B. McCullum not out                            47
K.D. Mills c Jayawardene b Jayasuriya       17
A.R. Adams run out                                 1
Extras (L-1, LB-5, NB-3, W-4)                 13
TOTAL (8 wkts in 50 overs, 193 mins)      156
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-17 (Nevin), 2-40 (Vincent), 3-42 (Fleming), 4-69, (Cairns), 5-76 (Harris), 6-88 (Styris), 8-156 (Adams).
DID NOT BAT: D.L. Vettori, D.R. Tuffey.
BOWLING: Vaas 8-2-11-0, Nissanka 8-1-19-1, Dharmasena 10-2-19-0, Muralitharan 10-2-41-2 (4w, 3nb), Lokuarachchi 5-1-25-0, Jayasuriya 9-0-35-2.

SRI LANKA 

S.T. Jayasuriya c McCullum b Tuffey        9
R.S. Kaluwitharana c McCullum b Adams  18
M.S. Atapattu c sub (Horne) b Vettori    13
K.C. Sangakkara b Vettori                     11
D.P.M. Jayawardene c Harris b Styris      38
T.M. Dilshan c Fleming b Vettori              7
W.P.U.J.C. Vaas c McCullum b Mills          4
H.D.P.K. Dharmasena c McCullum b Harris 11
K.S. Lokuarachchi lbw b Styris                 8
M. Muralitharan c Mills b Vettori               4
R.A.P. Nissanka not out                          6
Extras (B-3, LB-2, NB-4, W-9)               18
TOTAL (all out, 49.1 overs, 213 mins)    147
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-28 (Kaluwitharana), 2-43 (Jayasuriya), 3-60, (Sangakkara), 4-63 (Atapattu), 5-79 (Dilshan), 6-87 (Vaas), 7-101, (Dharmasena), 8-121, (Lokuarachchi), 9-136 (Muralitharan), 10-147, (Jayawardene).
BOWLING: Tuffey 9-4-22-1 (4w), Mills 8-2-30-1 (2w, 2nb), Adams 3-0-14-1 (2w), Styris 9.1-0-30-2 (1w) , Vettori 10-4-14-4, Harris 10-2-32-1 (2nb).
Man-of-the-Match: D.L. Vettori.

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