Pakistan break record and England bounce back
Pakistan made it two wins from two ICC World Cup matches as they performed a record run-chase to set up a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in Hyderabad on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, England bounced back from their opening game loss to New Zealand, with a 137 run win over Bangladesh. Pakistan, chasing a daunting 345 after Kusal Mendis and Sadeera Samarawickrama smashed tons to put Sri Lanka in a commanding position, got over the line in 48.2 overs thanks to Mohammad Rizwan's 131 not out and Abdullah Shafique's 113. "Whenever you perform for your country and the performance is like that to win the match, it leaves you speechless," said player of the match Rizwan, who smashed eight fours and three sixes in his 121-ball knock. "It was difficult and when you chase like that it's always special. In the dressing room after we bowled, every player had the belief that we were going to chase that." It was also the first time in a World Cup match that four centuries had been hit and Mendis got the ball rolling with a blistering knock after being dropped on eight by Shaheen Shah Afridi and on 18 by Imam-ul-Haq. "Mendis is in form at the moment and is in another zone," Sri Lanka skipper Dasun Shanaka said as he counted the positives ahead of their clash with Australia next week. "It's his time in the tournament and there's more to come from him." England, meanwhile, revived their 50-overs World Cup title defence as Dawid Malan smashed a career-best 140 and Reece Topley wreaked havoc with the ball in a 137-run hammering of Bangladesh. Smarting from their nine-wicket thrashing by New Zealand in the tournament opener, England amassed 364-9 after their top order fired with Malan forging century-plus partnerships with Jonny Bairstow [52] and Joe Root [82]. Playing his first match of the tournament, left-arm quick Topley [4-43] wrecked Bangladesh's top order in the first six overs to set England up for an easy victory. Bangladesh were all out for 227 in 48.2 overs, and it could have been a bigger loss but for battling knocks by Litton Das [76] and Mushfiqur Rahim [51]. "I think a really good performance to bounce back from a disappointing first game and we still feel there are areas to improve," England captain Jos Buttler said. "I thought it was a fantastic score on that pitch, it got harder towards the end but we could've got more at the back end." (Reuters)