Pakistan secured the series win in the 3rd ODI of the five match series, when they defeated Sri Lanka by 7 wickets in Abu Dhabi yesterday(18).
Pakistan’s win took their winning streak to 7 starting from the Champions Trophy a few months back, while the Sri Lankan losing streak extended to 10.
Sri Lankan Cricket skipper Upul Tharanga won the toss and elected to bat first and he himself looked at his fluent best stroking a classy half century, continuing from where he left off after his unbeaten century in the previous match. The visitors were well placed at 102/1 at the half stage of their innings, but an all too familiar middle order collapse meant that the Sri Lankan innings was in disarray pretty soon.
Azam, spinners script Sri Lanka’s 9th consecutive ODI defeat
Two middle order collapses and two late order fruitful…
Dinesh Chandimal’s scrappy innings(19 off 49 balls) ended when he misread a wrong’un from Shadabh Khan for a second time in a row before Chamara Kapugedara was undone by Hasan Ali to leave Sri Lanka reeling at 137/4 in the 34th over.
Things went from bad to worse for Sri Lanka as Milinda Siriwardana, Jefferey Vandersay and Akila Dananjaya were dismissed in quick succession as Sri Lanka slid further to 163/8. Thisara Perera was the only shinning light at the back end of the innings striking a few lusty blows on his way to a better than run a ball 38 to help Sri Lanka go past the 200 run mark.
Hasan Ali continued his brilliant form with the ball picking up a five wicket haul while also becoming the fastest Pakistani to 50 ODI wickets.
Pakistan were given a flying start in pursuit of their victory target of 209, when Imam-Ul-Haq and Fakhar Zaman put on an opening stand of 78 inside 17 overs. Vandersay broke through for Sri Lanka when he deceived Zaman in the flight to have him stumped for 29.
That was as good as it got for the Sri Lankans as Pakistan lost just two further wickets before reaching the target inside 43 overs. Imam-Ul-Haq, – the nephew of former Pakistani great Inzamam-Ul-Haq – who was on debut, was the star of their batting effort as he made a brilliant century to guide the Pakistani run chase.
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