New Zealand bat first against Srilankan spin

New Zealand chose to bat v Sri Lanka
Live scorecard and ball-by-ball details

New Zealand escaped the pressure of chasing against the Sri Lanka spinners when they won the toss and decided to bat first in the first of the Super Eight matches. Martin Guptill boosted the New Zealand batting, but his inclusion resulted in one bowler - Adam Milne - being taken out. New Zealand will take heart from the fact that Sri Lanka have never successfully chased in a home T20I.

However, New Zealand had a host of spinners lining up to bowl against them, including Akila Dananjaya, who after impressing Mahela Jayawardene in a training session was fast-tracked to play the SLPL and now finds himself with an international cap at the age of 18. Ajantha Mendis was "90% fit", according to Jayawardene, but he was picked to play, replacing Rangana Herath.

Dilshan Munaweera made way for Dananjaya. That left Sri Lanka with four specialist batsmen followed by three allrounders.

New Zealand 1 Martin Guptill, 2 Rob Nicol, 3 Brendon McCullum (wk), 4 Kane Williamson, 5 Ross Taylor (capt), 6 Jacob Oram, 7 James Franklin, 8 Daniel Vettori, 9 Nathan McCullum, 10 Tim Southee, 11 Kyle Mills.

Sri Lanka 1 Tillakaratne Dilshan, 2 Mahela Jayawardene (capt), 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Dinesh Chandimal, 5 Jeevan Mendis, 6 Angelo Mathews, 7 Thisara Perera, 8 Nuwan Kulasekara, 9 Lasith Malinga, 10 Ajantha Mendis, 11 Akila Dananjaya.