Kusal Mendis refused to leave without a win as he handed Pakistan a taste of their own medicine. After winning the toss for the third time in the series, Mendis opted to bowl first, avoiding going down the unorthodox route of batting first he took in the first game.
Pakistan stumble early before Farhan and Minhas revive the innings
Batting first, Pakistan were in trouble early. They lost two wickets in the fourth over, and both of them were crucial ones. It was Fakhar Zaman who became the first victim of Eshan Malinga, as a thick edge off his bat was caught by short third. Zaman looked pretty comfortable while batting, having scored 12 off 7 balls before misfortune struck. It was back to the usual pair of Sahibzada Farhan and Maaz Sadaqat doing what they had done for a good part of this series: building a quick stand. But that was not to be as Malinga struck once again, sending Sadaqat for his first international duck.
Maaz’s dismissal seemed to have lowered Pakistan’s morale immensely as the overs that followed the powerplay saw the run rate plummeting. The boundaries had dried up, with Pakistan going 30 balls without hitting one. During this period, two more Pakistan batters, Hasan Nawaz and Khawaja Nafay, had made their way out.
Imran Randhawa, for some reason, was the next batter in, and he could only score 6 runs off 10 balls, worsening the hosts’ situation further. Abdul Samad, who was included in the squad in place of Saim Ayub, came in next, and that’s when things started turning for Pakistan. While Samad himself went back in after a quick cameo of just 15 runs, his successor Arafat Minhas joined captain Sahibzada Farhan to take the scoring rate up. Like Samad, Minhas was also playing his first game of the series, but it did not take him long to get started. The pair struck 66 runs off just 37 balls, taking Pakistan from 102 for 6 to 168 for 8 by the time the innings ended.
Kusal Mendis leads Sri Lanka’s chase with a gritty 87
It was a defendable total, at least relatively more than what Pakistan initially seemed to be going for, but Sri Lanka brought down Pakistan’s hopes significantly in the very first over. Sineth Jayawardena took Salman Mirza down for 14 runs in the first over, which easily allowed Sri Lanka to lie low in the next two overs. That lull was followed by three consecutive 10-plus-run overs, allowing the visitors to take the powerplay score to 59 for 1.
Jayawardena and Kusal Mendis were relentless against Pakistan, scoring a 41-ball 59-run stand, which was eventually broken by Minhas in the eighth over. But that did not matter because a set Mendis was joined by his namesake Kamindu Mendis, who cashed in on the tone set by Jayawardena.
The run rate slowed down for a while, but both Mendises compensated for any economical over by a Pakistan bowler by punishing the next bowler. Razaullah conceded 18 runs in the 14th over, bringing the required run rate down to a bit over four runs an over. The deficit was overcome soon by the batters, shepherding the visitors to an eight-wicket win to avoid a whitewash.
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