On Thursday in Abu Dhabi, Sri Lanka historically defeated Afghanistan by six wickets and thus qualified for the Asia Cup Super Four stage.
Sri Lanka’s innings came to a close in just 18.4 overs and were able to achieve a modest 170 target, in large part due to Kusal Mendis, who scored an astonishing 74 runs in just 52 balls.
Mohammad Nabi’s stunning performance was Afghanistan’s greatest achievement during the match. The veteran all-rounder scored 60 runs off 22 balls, 30 of which came purely off the back of sixes. Five of which were hit in the final over.
The defeat to Sri Lanka saw Afghanistan’s Super Four ambitions come to a close, which was also the fate of Bangladesh who qualified for this stage from Group B. India and Pakistan proceeded to Super Four from Group A.
“I am very happy with the performance today. It was almost a perfect game for us. At the start, the bowlers were doing their job and the only one we got wrong was the last over. But other than that, we executed a very good game plan. “These were the words of Sri Lanka’s captain Charith Asalanka.
“I was expecting better performance from my team, especially my bowlers. I was quite disappointed in that area.” is how Rashid Khan, the captain of Afghanistan, summarised the match.” As a team, our failure in bowling definitely cost us the win. That was batting on a different type of deck, though, quite tricky,” said the leg-spinner.
On Friday in Abu Dhabi, India will face Oman for the last group match.
On Saturday, the Super Four stage will begin with Bangladesh matched against Sri Lanka for the first game at the Dubai International Stadium.
Highlights
India will face Pakistan in the next match of the Super Fours at the same venue on Sunday. The two winners from the Super Fours will face off in the final at Dubai on September 28.
Brief scores:
Sri Lanka 171 for 4 (Kusal 74 not out, Perera 28, Omarzai 1-10) beat Afghanistan 169 for 8 (Nabi 60, Rashid 24, Ibrahim 24, Thushara 4-18) by six wickets.