GUYANA: The Kiwis beat Lankans by two wickets in the opening match of the T20 Cricket World Cup here.

Nathan McCullum was declared the Man of the Match. He managed to get three catches besides taking a wicket.

The winning captain Vettori said, “Fortunately having played a couple of matches here, we knew 135 was gettable.”

Sri Lankan captain Kumar Sangakkara said, “We were 10-12 runs short, we were a bit slow in the first six overs, Jayawardene played really well to get us to this total.”

He said further, “I feel the first 6 to 7 overs put us on the backfoot and we did not gain momentum. We were not able to convert the run-out chances. We can improve in the field and do better in the future games.”

In another match of the day hosts West Indies thrashed Ireland by 70 runs.

The Carribbean side won the toss and elected to bat first at Providence Stadium, in Guyana. They put up 138/9 in 20 overs. Darren Sammy was the top scorer with 30 off 17 balls. Sarwan made 24.

For Ireland, George Dockrell took 3 wickets, while Boyd Rankin, Alex Cusack and Andre Botha took 2 wickets each.

Chasing a victory target of 139, Ireland kept losing wickets at regular intervals. They finally bowled out for 68 in 16.4 overs. Gary Wilson was the only batsman to reach double-digit score. He made 17.

Ravi Rampaul and Darren Sammy took 3 wickets and Bravo claimed two wickets for West Indies. Darren Sammy was declared “Man of the Match” for his all-round performance.