Match Details
Chasing a hefty total of 324, Afghanistan were off to a disastrous start as Dushmantha Chameera gave them an early setback by removing the gloveman Rahmanullah Gurbaz 2(12) in the 4th over with a peach of a delivery. Rahmat Shah, the next batter in, joined forces with Ibrahim Zadran but the Sri Lankan bowlers were able to restrict the boundaries as both Zadran and Rahmat batted sedately inside the powerplay.
The lackluster start from the visitors only helped them to aggregate 33 runs off the first ten overs. Rahmat and Zadran stitched a scratchy 51-run partnership for the second wicket before skipper Dasun Shanaka trapped Rahmat 36(42) in front and attained the second breakthrough for the hosts. Another partnership was developed for Afghanistan in the middle overs but they were unable to accelerate the innings as the required run rate kept climbing.
The Afghan skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi and Ibrahim Zadran both got to their respective half-centuries and added 84 runs for the third wicket. Just when Afghanistan was starting to change gears, Dhananjaya de Silva was brought back into the attack and the off-spinner changed the entire complexion of the game. Dhananjaya removed the two set batters Ibrahim Zadran 54(75) and Shahidi 57(62) and gathered momentum for Sri Lanka.
The leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga capitalized on that and ran through the Afghanistan lower order in a flash. Azmatullah Omarzai played a fighting knock of 28(31) but the target was always a little too much to be chased by him alone. Both Wanindu (3/42) and Dhananjaya (3/39) bagged three wickets while Chameera also clinched a couple of wickets on his comeback.