RAWALPINDI: Pakistan spinners baffled Sri Lanka batters as the hosts won the T20 tri-series title match by six wickets on Saturday.
Sri Lanka lost its last eight wickets for just 16 runs before it got bowled out for 114 in 19.1 overs after Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha won the toss and elected to bat.
Pakistan cruised to 118-4 with eight balls to spare in a lop-sided final with opening batters Saim Ayub (36) and Sahibzada Farhan (23) providing a solid start before Babar Azam scored an unbeaten 37 off 34 balls.
Sri Lanka came into the final with back-to-back wins over Zimbabwe and Pakistan but crumbled against spinners Mohammad Nawaz (3-17), Abrar Ahmed (2-18) and Ayub (1-17).
The visitors looked set to post a competitive total by reaching 81-1 at the halfway stage but hit just one six in the 12 overs off the slow bowlers.
Left-handed opener Kamil Mishara staked his claim for next year’s T20 World Cup with 59 off 47 balls as he shared 64-run stand with Kusal Mendis (14) to give Sri Lanka a perfect platform.
But the slide began when Babar plucked a terrific catch over his head on the edge of long-off boundary in Nawaz’s first over to dismiss Mendis in the 11th over.
Mishara, who raised his half-century off 37 balls, tried to push the scoring rate before Babar hung onto another brilliant diving catch while running from long-off boundary as Sri Lanka slipped to 98-3 in the 14th over.
Ahmed then claimed two wickets in one over with Babar capping his perfect day in the outfield by grabbing Pavan Rathnayake’s (8) catch and Kusal Perera’s below-par white-ball tour to Pakistan continued when he skied a catch to wicketkeeper Usman Khan after scoring 1 off 6 balls.
Nawaz finished the tri-series as the top wicket taker with 10 wickets when he dismissed Janith Liyanage and Wanindu Hasaranga cheaply before Shaheen Shah Afridi (3-18) mopped up the tail in his return spell to limit Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka struggled to get an early breakthrough as Farhan and Ayub shared 46-run opening stand. Ayub was aggressive against Maheesh Theekshana in the power play and hit the spinner for three boundaries in one over and Farhan smacked Hasaranga for a six and a four of the first two balls the leg-spinner bowled after the power play.
Eshan Malinga (1-16) had Farhan clean bowled off a delivery that seamed into the right-hander and Ayub got trapped lbw of Hasaranga’s (1-31) delivery that kept low and struck the left-hander on the backfoot.
Although Rathnayake (2-11) claimed the wickets of Agha and Fakhar Zaman in successive overs, Babar stayed calm before guiding Dushmantha Chameera to third for a winning boundary with plenty of balls to spare.
