Sri Lanka's hopes for WC qualification ends after 2-0 defeat against Black Caps in ODIs

The 1996 World Series champions, and the 2007 and 2011 runner-up SL have suffered a major setback ahead of the ODI World Championship 2023. SL had recently missed the opportunity to qualify directly for the World Championship 2023 which will take place in India starting in October later this year.

After losing the Test series 2-0 recently against New Zealand, Sri Lanka also lost 2-0 against Black Caps in the ODI series. The second ODI of the series was abandoned due to rain. In the third match, the Visitors faced a defeat by 6 wickets while setting up the target of 158 runs for NZ. Following this defeat, SL lost the series and the direct qualification ticket for the ODI World Championship for this year's marquee tournament.

Talking about this match, the Visitors just managed to score 157 runs in 41.3 overs. Nissanka scored 57 off  64 balls, including 8 fours and 1 six in his innings. Matt Henry, Mitchell and Shipley scalped 3 wickets each for the Hosts. In response, Black Caps started under pressure as the team lost three batters for just 21 runs.

After this, Will Young handled the innings and along with Henry Nicholls took the team to an easy 6-wicket victory. Young scored a match-winning 86 not out and Nicholls played a crucial inning of 44. In the first match of the series, the SL had to face a crushing defeat by 198 runs. Now both will play the T20 series of 3-match.

ODI World Series 2023 is to be held in India, and eight teams will qualify directly in the league stage. Out of which seven teams were confirmed and there was a fight between Sri Lanka, West Indies, South Africa and Ireland for the eighth team. 

With the defeat in this match, Sri Lanka is now out of the league competition. The current Asian title holder will now have to play in the qualifier round. It will happen after 44 years in the history of the ODI World Series that the Sri Lankan team will play in the qualifiers for the ODI World Series. Earlier in the 1979 World Series, Sri Lanka had to play qualifiers. However, this happened recently in 20-World Cup as well when West Indies and Sri Lanka played qualifiers before the tournament in 2022.