Off Topic 2026 cricket

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after the disappointing and badly organised australia tour, england have just played a three-game one day series against sri lanka and a three-day series of t20 games starts on sunday.

one day games:

1. jan 22 1-0 sri lanka
sri lanka 271/6 (mendis 93no, rashid 3/44)
england 252 (duckett 62, root 61, madushan 3/39)

2. jan 24 1-1
sri lanka 219 (asalanka 45)
england 223/5 (root 75)

3. jan 27 england win the series 2-1
england 357/3 (brook 136no (off 66), root 111no (off 108), bethell 65)
sri lanka 304 off 46.4 (rathnayake 121, nissanka 50)

root and brook put on 191 undefeated for the 4th wicket off 18.5 overs. root contributed one of england's last 69 runs.
brook's 136 is the second highest one-day score for england v sri lanka (best is jason roy's 162 in 2016) and the highest for england in sri lanka.
only one player (ab de villiers, 149) has made a higher score when beginning their innings after the 30th over.
in england's final 8 overs, brook scored 98 (off 34). only one player is known to have scored more in the last 8 overs of an odi (jos buttler 101).
brook's 9 sixes is the most in sri lanka in men's cricket.

england's 357 is their highest one-day score against sri lanka. it's england's first 300 odi total in sri lanka.
first sri lanka series defeat after 12 undefeated. last loss was against india in 2021. the 12 series undefeated run has only been bettered twice; india went 13 games without loss and south africa went 17. new zealand are currently indefeated in their last eleven series.
 
SL going well, 130-odd off 14 with wickets in hand, could be a good chase coming up.
 
Eng need 190 to win, could have been more but for some decent bowling towards the end.
 
Eng win, DLS, some pretty savage batting from Brook then Banton and Curran took us over the line. Banton was good, combination of big and careful hitting, doing what the game needed.
 
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2026 t20i world cup

anyway, after a stuttering england got through the meet-the-minnows round, they landed in the "super eights", whatever that means, and have won the first two of their three games, putting them in the semi-finals thanks to four points and the new zealand-pakistan game (1 pt each) being rained off.

england beat pakistan on tuesday after england spin restricted pakistan to 164/9 and harry brook pretty much did a one-man batting job with his first t20 century, reaching 100 off 50 deliveries and losing his wicket on the 51st. that left england needing 10 off three overs and they opted for the awkward route, losing two more wickets, before jofra archer finished the job with 5 off 2. apart from brook's 100, no other top 5 batsman got beyond 8, so sam curran's 16 helped, as did will jacks' 28.

liam dawson's 3 for 24 off 4 overs was england meanest, and most of the others weren't much more generous.

the other semi-finalist from england's group could be any from new zealand, pakistan, and sri lanka. in the other group, west indies - who scored 254 against zimbabwe - and south africa have a win each, while india and zimbabwe haven't.
 
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the eight teams left have all played two of their three games to qualify for the semis.

england and south africa are through.

india and the west indies play (march 1st, pm) to decide who goes through. the windies are through if the match is not completed.

sri lanka are out but play pakistan (feb 28th). if pakistan win, they can go through ahead of new zealand, if new zealand lose to england (feb 27th). however, new zealand's goal difference is way better than pakistan's, so pakistan might be out of luck.

on the morning of march 1st, south africa play zimbabwe in a local derby.
 
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anyway, england beat new zealand thanks to some very later violence. that means pakistan can go through if they win by enough. batting first and getting 212 means they need to restrict sri lanka to around 148. sri lanka, after 6.1 overs are 49/2 and already need 12 an over to win. but if they can hang on to their wickets for long enough they can send new zealand through instead of pakistan.

pakistan opener farhan scored scored 100 (the opening stand was 176) and has set a new recordfor the most individual runs in the history of this tournament. india's kohli accumulated 319 in 2014. farhan has 381 so far.

16:45 sri lanka 120/5 off 14 overs. 28 off the next six should be enough to send pakistan home. sounds like pakistan need to restrict sri lanka to 146 or less.

16:50 sri lanka have taken 15 off the 15th over. they can win with an unlikely 78 off the last 5 overs, but another 12 runs will knock pakistan out.

16:54 the next four deliveries brought 12 runs. 4.2 overs and five wickets remain. pakistan are going home.

17:07 two overs and sri lanka need 46 with 4 wickets left.

38 from 10...

36 from 9. too many.

wide and a 6, 29 off 8.

28 off the last over.

466 leaves 12 off 3...

6 more leaves 6 off 2!

dot ball! 6 off one...

but it's a final dot ball!

pakistan win by 5, but both teams are done for this year.
 
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india have beaten the west indies in the final super-eights group match and thereby qualified for the semi-finals.

semis:
wed march 4th 1:30pm south africa v new zealand
thu march 5th 1:30pm england v india

final:
sun march 8th
 
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india have beaten the west indies in the final super-eights group match and thereby qualified for the semi-finals.

semis:
wed march 4th 1:30pm south africa v new zealand
thu march 5th 1:30pm england v india

final:
sun march 8th
We should beat them really, but they’ll probably beat us.
 
It'd help if Buttler could find some form. His record so far in this comp, 62 runs off 58 balls in 7 innings, 5 single figure scores.
Yeah that’s pretty shocking. I’m a big cricket fan, but haven’t really kept up with this competition if I’m honest. My uncle is a member at Headingley and my cousins (1 girl and 1 boy) were involved at Headiney at some point (not first team obviously).
 
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nz stuffed sa to get into the final.

sa 169/8, top score jansen 55no.

nz 173/1 off 12.5 at 13.48 runs/over. seifert 58, allen 100no off 33 deliveries, 10 fours, 8 sixes. that's 88 of his 100 in boundaries. fastest century in t20 (men's) finals.