Australia pulled off a last ball high scoring thriller against New Zealand. Tim David scored the required boundary and runs in the final overs for Aus to win. But Sri Lanka did not find such a hero for them against Afghanistan in the last T20I of the ongoing series. Batting unit of Afghanistan has come good as a whole in this match and that has put a huge pressure on SL batters in this match for the first time.
Afghanistan has been believing in their chasing capabilities but they have changed that formula for this match. They have elected to bat first and openers gave a thundering start. Hazratullah Zazai scored 45 runs from 22 balls. Rahmanullah Gurbaz carried on to score 70 runs from 43 balls in the innings. Azmatullah Omarzai(31) and Mohammad Ishaq(16) gave push at the end to take score to 209/5 in 20 overs.
In the chase, Sri Lanka got a huge start with Pathum Nissanka(60) going berserk. By the time, Kusal Mendis(16) got out SL were on 64 from 5.5 overs. Kusal Perera got duck out pushing SL on backfoot immediately. Wanindu Hasaranga(13) couldn’t really find his mojo. Meanwhile, Nissanka had to go retired hurt when he seemed to be taking the match away from Afghanistan single-handedly.
Sadeera Samarawickrama(23) and Kamindu Mendis(65) kept SL in the chase. When Kamindu looked like taking SL home, Angelo Mathews(4) failed and Dasun Shanaka(13) got run out. When SL needed 19 runs from last over, Kamindu tried his best but Wafadar Momand managed to save the game for Afghanistan. Hence, Afg won the match by 3 runs in the last over. SL could only score 206/6 in their 20 overs.
For his innings, Rahmanullah Gurbaz got Player of the Match award. SL Captain Wanindu Hasaranga won Player of the series for scoring 102 runs and taking 4 wickets in 3 T20Is. Sri Lanka managed to comprehensively win against Afghanistan at their home and this gives them confidence before CWC T20I, set to start in June.
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