Hambantota: Pakistan, after restricting Lankan’s to 132 runs, lost their golden opportunity to beat them in the first T-20 match of the series due to the disastrous batting show of the batsmen, thus giving Sri Lanka a chance to lead the series by 1-0 as they defeated Pakistan by 37 runs in the opening match played at Hambantota International Cricket Stadium, Hambantota, Sri Lanka.
Pakistani batsmen seemed have forgotten how to bat as the whole team bowled out at 95 runs in the 18th over. Ahmad Shehzad was the only Pakistani batsmen who showed some resistance against Lankan bowlers and scored 36 runs with Umar Akmal 12, while the other batsmen failed to cross 10’s.
The Lankan bowlers bowled with a strict line a length and gave no opportunity to Pakistani batsmen to play freely. Almost all Sri Lankan bowlers played their part in achieving a great success against Pakistan as four of them (Kulasekara, Malinga, Mathews and Senanayake) shared two wickets while Perera took one wicket only.
Earlier Pakistani bowlers bowled exceptionally well and restricted their opponents to 132 runs in 20 overs for the loss of seven wickets. Perera (32) and Thirimanne (30) helped Lankan’s to score a low but a reasonable target.
Man of the Match: Thisara Perera is the Man of the Match. Perera: “This is my first match after injury. I really enjoyed today.“
Mohammad Hafeez: “We had our moments but we couldn’t capitalise on them. Perera made the difference, we were looking not to give away too many runs. I feel we have to work and come hard in the next game. Tanvir was brilliant and the spinners did the job. We shouldn’t get too disheartened as it is only one loss.”
Mahela Jayawardene: “I thought [the Latif ‘catch’] landed on my fingers, it hurt a lot, but the umpires thought otherwise. It was played in the right spirit. It is a challenging wicket, we did not assess it well when we batted, we thought 160, but 140-150 was a good score. The fielding was absolutely brilliant, all the bowlers did well.”
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