Madushanka Takes Career-Best 5-34 as Sri Lanka Bowl Pakistan Out for 110 and Eliminate England
Dilshan Madushanka took a career-best five for 34 as Sri Lanka dismissed Pakistan for 110 and won by eight wickets at the Gaddafi Stadium, booking a place in Saturday’s one-day international tri-series final and eliminating England from a tournament in which they have lost all three of their matches.
Kusal Mendis won the toss and chose to field, and the decision was vindicated inside half an hour. Pakistan were bowled out in 25.3 overs for the lowest total of the competition, and Sri Lanka knocked off the 111 required in 18.1 overs.
Madushanka Runs Through the Top Order
The left-arm seamer was the difference. Madushanka’s figures of five for 34 improved on anything he had managed previously in the format, and he was supported by Sahan Arachchige, who took two, with Asitha Fernando, Eshan Malinga and Dunith Wellalage claiming one each.
Pakistan did not have a partnership of substance. Fakhar Zaman went for 5 and Saad Baig for the same score, Salman Ali Agha made 9, Shadab Khan 2 and Haris Rauf 1. Babar Azam was the top scorer with 29 from 33 balls before Malinga trapped him leg before wicket, by which point the innings had already reached 61 for 4.
Hasan Nawaz added 17 and Arafat Minhas 10, but at 91 for 8 the innings was effectively finished. Shaheen Shah Afridi then hit two sixes in a brief 15 from 13 deliveries to push the total past a hundred, which was as close to a recovery as Pakistan came. They had also used both of their reviews early, leaving them without recourse later on.
Kamindu Mendis Settles the Chase
Sri Lanka’s reply was brisk and largely untroubled. Avishka Fernando and Kamindu Mendis put on 50 inside 6.5 overs before Afridi removed Fernando for 16 from 17 balls.
Kusal Mendis lasted six deliveries for 8, bowled by Arafat Minhas off an inside edge, and that was the extent of the interruption. Kamindu Mendis reached his fifty from 43 balls, having survived a dropped catch earlier in his innings, and finished unbeaten on 62 from 60 with eight fours and two sixes.
Pavan Rathnayake was with him at the end, 23 not out from 26, and struck the boundary that completed the win with more than 31 overs unused.
England Out Without a Win
The result removed the last of England’s hopes. Having been beaten by Pakistan by 87 runs and then by Sri Lanka in a two-wicket finish, they went into this round needing other results to fall their way. Sri Lanka’s victory means both finalists are now confirmed and England’s remaining fixture against Sri Lanka on Thursday is a dead rubber.
It is a chastening outcome for a side that arrived with the strongest recent one-day record of the three and that will now go into a winter tour of Australia without a win from the trip.
England play three one-day internationals and five Twenty20 matches in Australia from 13 November, with a warm-up fixture against a Western Australia XI in Perth on 7 November.
Pakistan Already Through
Pakistan’s own position was secure before a ball was bowled. Three wins from their first three matches had already taken them into the final, most recently on Sunday, when Shadab Khan’s unbeaten 113 from number eight carried them past England by one wicket from 154 for 9.
That innings’ authors had little influence here. Shadab made 2 and Rauf 1 in a top order and lower order that both failed in the same innings, and the margin of defeat was the widest Pakistan have suffered in the competition.
The two sides meet again in Saturday’s final at the same venue, with Sri Lanka having now won one and lost one of their matches against the hosts and Pakistan having gone unbeaten until Tuesday.
