Sri Lanka qualifies for Cricket World Cup; Zimbabwe, Scotland to scrap it out for final place

BULAWAYO, Zimbabwe (AP) — Sri Lanka booked its place at this year's Cricket World Cup by claiming one of the two spots available at a qualifying tournament in Zimbabwe on Sunday.

Sri Lanka crushed Zimbabwe by nine wickets after an unbeaten century by opener Pathum Nissanka to seal its ticket.

That confirmed one of the two final places for this year's World Cup in India, which begins in October. Zimbabwe is still in position to take the last place and join cricket's biggest teams for the 50-over showpiece, although it must beat Scotland in its last game to be certain.

Sri Lanka's crushing win over the qualifying tournament host at Queens Sports Club in Bulawayo came after it bowled the Zimbabweans out for 165, with spinner Maheesh Theekshana taking 4-25 off 8.2 overs. Sri Lanka made 169-1.

“Coming into this tournament we had plans and we executed them,” Theekshana said.

Sri Lanka, the 1996 World Cup winner, has won six from six so far at the qualifying tournament and kept its record of playing at every Cricket World Cup.

It has one more game to play in the Super Six stage against West Indies, which was eliminated on Saturday, before it appears in the qualifying tournament's final on July 9.

Sunday's victory was a cruise after Zimbabwe was all out in 32.2 overs.

While Theekshana’s spin did much of the damage, pace bowler Dilshan Madushanka also played a key role with his 3-15. Sean Williams top-scored for Zimbabwe with 56 before being bowled by Theekshana.

Nissanka led Sri Lanka's easy chase with his 101 not out from 102 balls, hitting 14 fours. He put on a 103-run opening stand with Dimuth Karunaratne (30) and then took Sri Lanka home with an unbroken stand of 66 with Kusal Mendis, who was 25 not out.

Previously unbeaten at the tournament, Zimbabwe needs to win against Scotland on Tuesday to also qualify for the World Cup. A win for Scotland would put the teams level on points, and Scotland will have one more Super Six game against Netherlands to take the World Cup place.

“If we play great cricket as we’ve been doing, come Tuesday we will be good,” Zimbabwe coach Dave Houghton said.

Zimbabwe missed out on the last World Cup in 2019 for the first time since it started playing at the tournament in 1983. Scotland also missed 2019 and last played at the World Cup in 2015.

___

AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports