Afghanistan has once again proven that it is not to be taken lightly. After beating England and Pakistan and taking two historic wins home, they defeated Sri Lanka today by 7 wickets at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium in Pune.
With this win, Afghanistan is now at the fifth position on te points tabel right below Australia, while Sri Lanka is seated on the sixth. This is the third big win for Aghanistan in the ongoin tournament.
Afghanistan won the toss and chose to bowl first.
Starting first, Sri Lanka put a low score of 241 on the scoreboard. While the Sri Lankan top-order batsmen looked to score, Afghanistan bowlers kept taking regular wickets, with Sri Lanka losing the first wicket on 22. Dimuth Karunaratne walked away after scoring 15 runs. This was followed by Pathum Nissanka’s wicket at 84. The third and fourth wickets came in quick succession. While Kusal Mendis departed when the score was 134, Sadeera Samarawickrama was sent back on 139 runs. Following their departure, none of the batsmen could stay on the crease too long and the Sri Lankan team lost all their wickets.
Fazalhaq Farooqi was the star for Afghanistan, taking 4 wickets. Mujeeb Ur Rahman took 2 wickets, while Azmatullah Omarzai and Rashid Khan took 1 wicket each.
Coming in second on the field, Afghanistan lost Rahmanullah Gurbaz way too early in the game. He was shown the way even before he could open his account. However, from there on the Afghani seemed in control of the game and stuck to their plan to chase the target. As per a plan seen during the game, the team had planned to finish the game by the 48th over. They ended up finishing the game in the 46th over at the loss of just 3 wickets. The next wicket Sri Lanka managed to scoop was Ibrahim Zadran’s. The next three players all scored half-centuries, leaving no space for Sri Lanka to mount pressure on them. Rahmat Shah scored 62 runs before he was taken out by Kasun Rajitha. Post that wicket, skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi and Azmatullah Omarzai carried the team to victory and remained unbeaten scoring 58 and 73 runs, respectively.
Prior to this match, these two teams had played 11 ODIs against each other. Sri Lanka had won 7 of those and Afghanistan 3, while one match had not produced any results.