Sri Lanka, Netherlands advance at World T20 after UAE’s win

GEELONG, Australia: Dusan Shanaka’s patched-up Sri Lanka lineup beat Netherlands to secure a spot in the Super 12 stage at the Twenty20 World Cup and the Dutch advanced despite the loss when United Arab Emirates upset Namibia later Thursday in the last of the Group A games. Former champion Sri Lanka’s 16-run victory in its must-win game meant Netherlands needed UAE to produce an unlikely win over Namibia to have any chance of progressing.

Namibia had opened the tournament with a big upset over Sri Lanka, a three-time finalist. UAE had never won a game at the T20 World Cup — until Thursday.

The underdogs held on for a 7-run victory despite David Wiese’s rearguard half century and 70-run eighth-wicket stand with Ruben Trumpelmann to give Netherlands a pass into the second phase and end Namibia’s run in the preliminaries. The top two teams in each of the first-round groups will join the top eight teams in the next phase, which starts Saturday with defending champion Australia taking on New Zealand in a rematch of last year’s final.

Muhammad Waseem scored 50 and skipper CP Rizwan post an unbeaten 43 to lift UAE to 148-3 after winning the toss and electing to bat. When Namibia slipped to 69-7 in reply after pace bowler Zahoor Khan picked up two wickets in four balls with his yorkers in the 13th over, the Dutch players who stayed to watch in the stands were clapping and cheering.

Things got more tense when Wiese (55) and Trumpelmann (25 not out) went on the attack and cut the equation to 20 runs needed from two overs, and suddenly Namibia appeared more likely to secure a spot in the next stage. With 10 needed off the last three balls, Wiese tried to hit Waseem over the long-on boundary but didn’t quite middle it and Alishan