BRISBANE-England rode on fifties from Jos Buttler and Alex Hales, and a superb bowling effort by Sam Curran, to register a clinical 20-run win over New Zealand in their Super 12 encounter of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Gabba in Brisbane on Tuesday. 
Both the openers – Buttler and Hales - were in great form as they built a stand of 81 runs, with Hales doing the bulk of the scoring. The partnership came to an end when Hales got stumped by Devon Conway off Mitchell Santner’s bowling for a well-made 40-ball 52. But the England skipper carried on and continued to anchor their innings. He started accelerating with around six overs remaining and that’s when things went a bit out of control for New Zealand. 
Buttler also got dropped once before reaching his fifty and that only increased the miseries for the Kiwis. He hit seven fours and two sixes in his 47-ball 73. He was finally dismissed by a superb effort from Tim Southee and Kane Williamson in the penultimate over of the innings while trying to sneak a run. But he had already done the job for England by then and the lower middle-order played its part to take their total to 179/6. 
Curran bowled two overs up front and as many overs at the death, and he was equally brilliant in both phases. The left-arm pacer picked up the important wicket of Finn Allen inside the powerplay and then came back at the death to dismiss Glenn Phillips, who was threatening to take the game away from England. Curran ended his spell with brilliant figures of 4-0-26-2. After New Zealand lost two wickets early in their innings, Phillips walked in and stamped his authority with some brilliant shots. 
He played the aggressor in his 91-run stand with Williamson and then batted until the 18th over to get the Kiwis as close to the target as possible. But he perished finally for an excellent knock of 62 from 36 balls while attempting to clear the straight boundary off Curran’s bowling. New Zealand didn’t get any impetus in their innings after his dismissal and fell short by 20 runs.  With this win, England have now displaced Australia from the second position in Group 1 on account of better NRR. New Zealand, however, is still sitting at the top of the group as their NRR of +2.233 is far superior than that of England and Australia. 
Meanwhile, star spinner Wanindu Hasaranga was superb yet again as Sri Lanka stayed in contention for an unlikely berth in the ICC Men’s World Cup semifinals with a comprehensive six-wicket triumph over Afghanistan in Brisbane. Hasaranga is in good form in this World Cup with an impressive three-wicket haul and Player of the Match performance against Afghanistan at The Gabba. 

Scores in brief

ENGLAND 179 for 6 (Buttler 73, Hales 52, Ferguson 2-45) beat NEW ZEALAND 159 for 6 (Phillips 62, Curran 2-26) by 20 runs. 
SRI LANKA 148 for 4 (Dhananjaya de Silva 66*, Mujeeb 2-24) beat AFGHANISTAN 144 for 8 (Hasaranga 3-13) by six wickets.