Dilshan leads Sri Lanka to win over Pakistan

Sri Lanka easily overcame Pakistan in their respective first games in the Super Eights of the ICC World T20 at Lord’s to garner two points. Pakistan will now need to win both their remaining games to qualify for the semi-finals.

Sri Lanka won the toss and decided to bat first and were off to a flier thanks to T.Dilshan’s continuing good form, Sanath Jayasuriya’s return to confidence and some wayward bowling from all Pakistani quick bowlers in general, and Sohail Tanvir in specific. > Tanvir began the inning with three wides and two no-balls and 18 runs were scored off the very first over of the game as the Lankan team was away. Mohammad Aamer bowled a reasonable first over, but the runs kept leaking in some or other form, with even Umar Gul going for 12 in his first, as the fifty was raised in only 4.3 overs for no loss.

It was the introduction of Shahid Afridi immediately after the Power Play that slowed down the scoring, especially after the wicket of Sanath Jayasuriya. Lanka was 81/1 in nine overs at that stage, but could not muster a lot of runs after that as they fell away to spinning duo of Saeed Ajmal and Shahid Afridi. The duo conceded 49 runs in their eight overs and picked up four wickets to restrict the Lankans down to only 150/7 in the 20.

Dilshan ended with a 39-ball 46 when he was bowled off an Afridi googly. > Pakistan needed to score most of their runs off the quicker bowlers, knowing very well that the likes of Ajantha Mendis and Muthiah Muralitharan will throttle the batting. However, nothing of that sort happened, as it took Sri Lanka only three deliveries to draw first blood in the very first over. Salman Butt was bowled by Angelo Matthews for a duck, while Shoaib Malik and Kamran Akmal fell at the scores of 34 and 35 respectively.

Misbah-ul-Haq and Younus Khan did have a nice little partnership going for them, and at one stage, 50 runs were needed off 27 balls. But the fall of Misbah’s wicket, caught pulling a Murali ball pegged the Pakistanis back, as did the first-ball duck to Afridi. Captain Younus Khan completed his fifty, but fell soon after and the Pakistanis quickly collapsed to 131/9 in the 20 overs to hand over the game to Sri Lanka.

Dilshan’s ravaging inning won him the man-of-the-match award.