Sri Lanka survived perhaps Shahid Afridi's finest innings and an impressive comeback from Shoaib Akhtar through some superb fielding and lovely bowling from Lasith Malinga. The batsmen before Afridi seemed either incompetent or uninterested, the batsmen with him seemed intent on running themselves out, his cramp-induced groans could be heard through the stump mic, he hobbled through the last 17 of his runs, and took Pakistan from 32 for 4 to within 39 of the target when Kumar Sangakkara produced a catch for the ages. Malinga, coming back into ODI cricket, then produced a lethal three-over spell inside the batting Powerplay to wipe the tail off much in the fashion Pakistanis are used to doing with others.
Full report to follow
On a night of comebacks, Lasith Malinga came up with a spell more sensational and robust than Shoaib Akhtar's, and Pakistan were reeling under the immense pressure put by Malinga and big-yet-accurate inswing from Nuwan Kulasekara. To make it even better for Sri Lanka, Angelo Mathews followed his invaluable fifty with back-to-back wickets to reduce Pakistan to 32 for 4 in the 14th over. Shahid Afridi and Umar Akmal brought Pakistan back with a sensible and quick 73-run fifth-wicket stand, but Umar ran himself out in the 25th over to let Sri Lanka hold the clear advantage.
It was a perfect bowling start for Sri Lanka. Kulasekara played around with Shahzaib Hasan - all other bowlers would too - with inswingers and straighter ones in the first over. Malinga didn't torture Salman Butt for long: full outswinger, followed by a sharp bouncer, followed by another outswinger that crashed through the weak defence. Two debutants, Hasan and Umar Amin, then had little idea what to do.
Kulasekara didn't give anything away, only straying from his big inswingers to bowl the odd straight delivery outside off. Malinga brought more pace and variety, beating them more often, when Kulasekara was hard enough to face. Scoring was forgotten, pressure mounted fast as they edged and nudged to nine runs in seven overs. Malinga wanted more fun, following up a superb slower delivery with a sharp bouncer that took the big top edge to end Amin's misery.
Shoaib Malik brought some urgency, and Mathews a false sense of comfort in the batsmen's minds. Hasan whipped him over square leg for the first boundary of the innings, in the 10th over. Malik knew he had picked the wrong man when he charged at Mathews and could only edge the ball after the bowler had shortened the length and extracted extra bounce. Hasan, who scored 11 off 33, was a victim of the pressure he himself created, holing out to mid-on, off the bowling of Mathews.
Afridi then promoted himself and reminded the crowd that they were indeed trying to win the match, which hardly seemed the case when the top order was batting. He came out and just like that smacked the first two balls pitched up to him for sixes. Farveez Maharoof was at the receiving end, and learned his lesson fast: he hardly pitched anything up in the rest of his spell, and bowled some impressive cutters.
Afridi, though, put his head down for one of his responsible knocks, displaying discretion that he is hardly known for. There was a feeling Sri Lanka sat back and waited for the regulation mis-hit from Afridi, but he kept finding gaps for ones and twos. Umar joined in the process, using the big ground to their advantage. On nine occasions they managed to take couples during their important fifth-wicket stand. In a further exhibition of calculated hitting, he lofted Muttiah Muralitharan over his head for two sixes in two overs.
With cause for worry, Kumar Sangakkara brought Malinga back for the 25th over, and Umar set off for a suicidal single having defended straight to short cover. And Tillakaratne Dilshan is not the man to steal sharp singles off.
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