Afghanistan started Asia Cup campaign with a famous win against Sri Lanka. They thrashed Sri Lanka by 91 runs in 3rd match of Asia Cup 2018.
Skipper of Afghanistan, Asghar, won the toss and elected to bat first. They served the target of 250 runs which proved to be much more for Lankan as they remained 91 runs short of it.
Afghans opening pair of Shahzad and Janat shared 57 runs for the 1st wicket. Shahzad departed on 34 runs. His partner, Janat, scored 45 runs from 65 balls. Both were sent back to pavilion by Dananjayas. After that Rahamat Shah controll the innings during middle overs. He played brilliantly with his vital innings of 72 runs. Afghans lower middle order batsmen failed to utilize the given platform, hence, they were 10 down in allocated 50 overs, scoring 249 runs. Perera took 5 wickets in his bowling spell of 9 overs. Dananjaya took 2 wickets in his 10 over’s spell. Mallinga, Chameera and Jayasurya chipped in with a wicket each.
After fruitful first innings, Lankan’s opening pair of Tharanga and Mendis started their second innings. In the very second ball of second innings, a opener, Mendis, walked back to pavillion. Tharanga, who topped their batting chart, scored 36 runs off 64 balls. Afghanistan’s bowler gave tough time to Lankan batsmen as every batsmen, barring Tharanga, failed to stay there for long. The pitch looked to be spin friendly so Afghans took advantage of it to restrict Lankan cheaply on 158 runs. Rahaman, Naib, Nabi and Rashid took 2 wickets each. Rahmat Shah was awarded as man of the match for his wonderful 72 runs. Sri Lankan were knocked out of this edition of Asia Cup with this embarrassing lose.
