T20 WC: Santner joins elite allrounder club; Rachin registers third best figures by a Kiwi in tournament history

COLOMBO: It was a match filled with history for the Kiwis, particularly skipper Mitchell Santner and Rachin Ravindra, as they ousted co-hosts Sri Lanka with a dominant 61-run win in their ICC T20 World Cup Super Eight clash at Colombo on Wednesday.

Santner and Rachin’s all-round performances were the highlights of the one-sided encounter between New Zealand and Sri Lanka as the latter was restricted to 107/8 while chasing 169 runs.

After SL opted to field first, they restricted the Kiwis to 84/6, and it seemed that their chances of making it to the semifinals were in peril. Skipper Santner (47 in 26 balls, with two fours and four sixes) and Cole McConchie (31* in 23 balls, with three fours and two sixes) stitched an 84-run stand for the seventh wicket, which is the highest in tournament history for 7th wicket or lower, outdoing Steve Smith and Mike Hussey’s 74-run stand against Bangladesh in the 2010 edition at Bridgetown.

Part-time Cricketer again did it for New Zealand

Captain Mitchell Santner led from the front against Sri Lanka #Cricket #t20worldcup2026 pic.twitter.com/tfzCqpK4yY

— Khel Cricket (@Khelnowcricket) February 26, 2026

Santner, with his knock, joined an elite company of all-rounders from Test-playing nations, such as Shakib Al Hasan, Mohammed Nabi, Sikandar Raza, Hardik Pandya, and Shadab Khan, as a player with a double of 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in T20Is.

Besides his 137 wickets, Santner has also scored 1,021 runs in 88 innings at an average of 20.01 and a strike rate of 131.74, including a fifty and a best score of 77*. This year in 10 T20Is and eight innings, he has made 173 runs at an average of 34.60 and a strike rate of over 158, with best figures of 47*, marking a massive improvement in his hitting as a lower-order batter. He is enjoying his best calendar year as a batter in T20Is.

Sri Lanka’s demolition saw them get restricted to 107/8, with highlight knocks coming from Kamindu Mendis (31 in 23 balls, with four boundaries) and Dunith Wellalage (29 in 23 balls, with two fours). Rachin Ravindra, who had earlier cracked 32 in 22 balls, with three fours and a six, took a four-wicket haul, breaking the back of the Lankan batting.

Rachin’s figures of 4/27 are the third-best figures by a Kiwi bowler in T20 World Cup history, with Santner’s 4/11 against India in 2016 at Nagpur and Daniel Vettori’s 4/20 against India at Johannesburg in 2007 being the top two efforts. (ANI)