Milinda Siriwardana

The gala opening of DNI Mangalore Premier League got a touch of Sri Lankan flavour with two of their international cricketers Roshen Silva and Milinda Siriwardana inaugurating the fourth edition of this KSCA approved T20 cricket tournament at Dr B R Ambedkar Stadium at Panambur on Tuesday.

Samuel Badree took three wickets and then Fletcher scored unbeaten 84 as West Indies cruised to a seven-wicket win over defending champions Sri Lanka in a Group 1 Super 10 match of the ICC World T20 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Sunday.

From leadership crisis to infighting in team to poor results to administrative mess, Sri Lanka cricket has endured all in run up to the World Cup and the former champions require no less than a miracle to emerge a worthy challenger this time.

Mangalore Premier League 4.0 is all set to get underway at BR Ambedkar Stadium, Panambur from March 20.

It's not often that we take batting lessons from Bhuvneshwar Kumar. But Thursday night was different and the international media waited patiently till well past midnight to hear from Bhuvneshwar, the batsman.

The middle-order puzzle has remained unsolved and it has increasingly looked that Indian team management has been heavily dependent on Plan A, which is success from their top-order.

Pakistan's batsmen chose a dead rubber to wake up from slumber as the Shahid Afridi-led side cruised to a six-wicket win over Sri Lanka at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium here on Friday night.

His decision to change his technique didn't bear fruit and Sri Lankan batsman Dinesh Chandimal said he is now reverting back to his old technique to do well in the ICC World T20.

Ousted from the tournament after morale-crushing defeats against Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will lock horns in their inconsequential final round robin encounter of the Asia Cup T20 on Friday.

Sri Lanka performed ordinarily with the bat, putting up a modest 129-8 on board, but more than made up for it with the ball in the second half of the contest.

Senior batsman Upul Tharanga will lead a 15-man Sri Lanka squad in the five-match ODI series against India that begins in Dambulla on Sunday.

England defeated Sri Lanka by 10 runs in a crucial Group 1 Super 10 match at the Feroz Shah Kotla on Saturday to secure a semi-final spot.

India romped to the 218-run target riding on knocks of unbeaten knocks by Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni with more than four overs to spare after pacer Jasprit Bumrah took his maiden five-wicket haul, enabling India restrict a struggling Sri Lanka to 217/9.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni added a record unbeaten 100-run stand for the eighth wicket to help India register a thrilling three-wicket win over Sri Lanka in the second one-day international in Pallekele on Thursday.

One team has been practising non-stop since arriving in the Capital while the other has managed to eke out time for sightseeing in this packed World T20 schedule.

India remain unbeaten and sail through to the final with a comfortable five-wicket win over Sri Lanka.

A wobbly middle order has been a cause of concern despite the winning run and India would be desperate for the likes of Mahendra Singh Dhoni to find some form ahead of the semifinal when they take on Sri Lanka in their last preliminary World Cup clash on Saturday.

Though they haven't been at their best recently, since bowing out in the group stage of the 1999 World Cup, the Lankans have made the knockouts in each of their subsequent WC campaigns — even making two successive finals in 2007 and 2011.

Buoyed by the stunning win against England, Sri Lanka will look to keep their semifinals hopes alive as they train their sights on South Africa in a do-or-die World Cup encounter here Friday.