2026-02-16 19:28:00
“After we lost the first wicket, Kusal and I just planned to have a good powerplay,” Nissanka said after the match. “He got a good start and that made things easier for me. We thought that there would be some dew, so the plan was to bat normally until that arrived. After 12 overs we were going to take stock and one of us would make a charge.”
The dew didn’t exactly play much of a role, Australia captain Mitchell Marsh confirming that conditions “didn’t feel dewy” to him.And yet Nissanka thumped 50 runs in the last 20 balls he faced, hitting five fours and three sixes during that period. He reached triple figures – the second time he’s done so in T20Is – off the fifth ball of the 18th over.
“I had a big target to hit a 100 in this World Cup, so I’m happy I was able to do that,” Nissanka said. “We had played a match on this wicket, and we knew it was good for batting. Because Kusal and I batted well also, Australia couldn’t bowl so well to us.”
The hundred was not Nissanka’s first spectacular act of the match. He had also completed a scintillating grab at backward point, leaping high to his left to hold a rapidly-traveling ball that came off the middle of Glenn Maxwell’s bat. Nissanka had felt as if he needed to redeem himself, after dropping a much more straightforward catch off Maxwell at long on the previous over.