Luke Wright’s match-winning 99 not out off 55 balls for England against Afghanistan in the World Twenty20 was warmly greeted by axed team-mate Kevin Pietersen. “Thrilled for Luke Wright,” Pietersen said in a post-match discussion on ESPN-Star Sports, the host broadcaster of the tournament for whom he is working as a studio expert. “He has been out for ages. He has come back in one of his first games since the last tournament and he has performed.” Pietersen, who was man of the tournament when England won the tournament in 2010 in the Caribbean, has been cast into international exile for disciplinary reasons.
Wright’s effort, the best by an England batsman in the World Twenty20, powered the defending champions to an emphatic 116-run win over Afghanistan in a group A match in Colombo on Friday night. It knocked the minnows out of the tournament and lifted both England and India into the Super Eights round from the group even before they clash in the last league match on Sunday. With no points carried forward into the next round and the Super Eights groups to be formed on the basis of pre-tournament seedings, both teams will be playing for nothing more than personal glory.
But England captain Stuart Broad said his team will not take the game lightly. “It is hard to call any international game a dead game,” said Broad. “We will be fired up and wanting a win against India. Actually, we need to be at our best if we want to beat India.
England’s Wright earns Pietersen kudos
