Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup by defeating Pakistan in every category

In the Asia Cup T20 final, Sri Lanka won the Asia Cup for the sixth time by defeating Pakistan by 23 runs. Chasing 171 runs, the Pakistani team was dismissed for 147 runs in 20 overs. Mohammad Rizwan scored 55 runs and Iftikhar Ahmed scored 32 runs. For Sri Lanka, Pramod Madhushan dismissed four and Hasaranga de Silva dismissed three players.

In the match played at the Dubai Cricket Stadium on Sunday, Green Shirts captain Babar Azam won the toss and decided to bowl first, which initially went well, but Sri Lanka scored 71 not out from Bhanuka Rajapaksa and 36 runs from Hasaranga de Silva. Thanks to 170 runs for the loss of six wickets in 20 overs. On behalf of Pakistan, Haris Rauf dismissed three players and also completed his 50 wickets in T20. Bhanuka Rajapaksa got the man of the match award for his brilliant innings while Hasaranga de Silva bagged the player of the series award.

Description of Pakistan's innings

Captain Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan opened the innings on behalf of Pakistan, then nine extra runs were scored without a ball.

As usual, both the openers started the game slowly and in the fourth over, Pramod Madhushan sent Babar Azam to the pavilion for five runs. From this, Fakhar Zaman was also bowled on the very next ball.

 

Iftikhar Ahmed could not teach any special performance as usual. He formed a partnership of 71 runs off 54 balls with Rizwan. Both the players batted extremely slowly with no sixes hit in the first 10 overs. Iftikhar was dismissed for 32 runs off 31 balls.

The fourth player to get out was Mohammad Nawaz who scored six runs and was caught out by Chamika Karunaratne.

Mohammad Rizwan played an innings of 55 runs off 49 balls and was caught trying to hit Hasaranga de Silva for a six. In the same over, Hasaranga sent Asif Ali and Khush Dil Shah back to the pavilion and put the final nail in the coffin of the Pakistani team.

In the next over, Mahesh Tekshana dismissed Shadab Khan for eight runs.

Pramod Madhushan took the fourth wicket of the match and caught out Naseem Shah.

The last player to get out was Haris Rauf who scored 13 runs and was bowled by Chamika Karunaratne.

Sri Lanka's innings

Sri Lanka's Kaushal Mendes and Patham Nissanka opened the innings but Naseem Shah's quick in-swing bowled Mendes for a wicket.

Patham Nissanka, who scored a half-century in the last match against Pakistan, was caught by Babar Azam in the fourth over in an attempt to hit Haris Rauf's ball.

Danishka Gunathilaka could not do anything special in this match as well and was bowled by a quick ball from Haris Rauf.

Dhananjaya de Silva, who came in one down, took an aggressive approach to take his team out of the pressure and hit the Pakistani pacers for four boundaries, but he was caught by Iftikhar Ahmed, who was bowling for the first time in the tournament.

After the Pakistani pacers, the spinners did not stay behind and Shadab Khan bowled Dasan Shanaka for just two runs.

After the fall of five wickets, Hasaranga De Silva De Silva came to the wicket and supported his team's slump. He formed a partnership of 58 runs with Bhanuka Rajapaksa. He fell prey to Haris Rauf by scoring 36 runs off 21 balls with the help of five fours and a six.

Sri Lanka scored 107 runs in the last 10 overs. Shadab Khan dropped Rajapaksa's first catch while the second caused a fall.

Babar Azam managed only one over from Mohammad Nawaz, who troubled the batsmen with his spin bowling throughout the tournament, while he managed three overs from part-time bowler Iftikhar Ahmed.

After winning the toss, Green Shirts captain Babar Azam said that we are very confident. As a team, you want to reach the final and win. As a team, we have shown a very good performance.

Sri Lanka did not make any changes in the team for the final, while Usman Qadir and Hasan Ali were replaced by Shadab Khan and Naseem Shah in the Pakistan team.

Earlier, Sri Lanka defeated Pakistan in the last match of the Super Four stage on Friday.