West Indies face Sri Lanka today

Sports Desk: Sri Lanka and the West Indies meet at Emirates Riverside in Durham today, in their penultimate game of the Cricket World Cup, with both unable to qualify to the knockout stage.

Sri Lanka could yet pull level with England - who currently occupy the fourth and final semi-final spot - on 10 points, if they win their final two games and the tournament hosts were to lose their last to New Zealand, But, Sri Lanka have earned two of their points through washouts and, therefore, England's greater win tally would see them progress.

As for the West Indies, they have been long since out of contention, sitting second from bottom in the table with only three points and one win - their opener, an emphatic seven-wicket success over Pakistan - to show for their seven games in the tournament s far.

Barring a third-game washout against South Africa, the West Indies have lost five in a row, well beaten by England, Bangladesh and most recently by India, while they were edged out of close contests by both Australia and New Zealand.

The West Indies are now playing for pride and with their final two fixtures of the World Cup coming against the similarly struggling Sri Lanka and still winless Afghanistan, they at least have the chance to finish the tournament strongly.

For Sri Lanka, expectations were low coming into the tournament, so semi-final spot always seemed unlikely, even after their stunning, 20-run shock win over England at Headingley. They were brought crashing back to earth with a nine-wicket thrashing by South Africa when they last took to the field in Durham on Friday.

West Indies: Jason Holder (captain), Chris Gayle, Shai Hope, Shimron Hetmyer, Carlos Brathwaite, Sheldon Cottrell, Oshane Thomas, Kemar Roach, Ashley Nurse, Nicholas Pooran, Sunil Ambris, Evin Lewis, Shannon Gabriel, Darren Bravo, Fabian Allen.

Sri Lanka: Dimuth Karunaratne (capt), Dhananjaya de Silva, Kasun Rajitha , Avishka Fernando, Suranga Lakmal, Lasith Malinga, Angelo Mathews, Kusal Mendis, Jeevan Mendis, Kusal Perera, Thisara Perera, Milinda Siriwardana, Lahiru Thirimanne, Isuru Udana, Jeffrey Vandersay.


risingbd/July 1, 2019/Mukul