win<\/a> over Sri Lanka in Abu Dhabi.<\/p>\nBoth teams went into the crucial Super Fours match knowing a loss in the game on Tuesday would put them on the verge of elimination from the regional cricket tournament hosted by the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n
Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n
Pakistan began their chase of 134 in near-perfect manner when openers Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman shared a 45-run partnership.<\/p>\n
Farhan, in particular, was the more belligerent of the two as he scored 24 runs off 15 balls before falling to the off-break bowling of Maheesh Theekshana in the sixth over.<\/p>\n
Zaman, who was hit on the head by a bouncer from Dushmantha Chameera in the first over, was not his usual quick-scoring self and followed Farhan two balls later when his attempted slog through the covers was caught brilliantly by a diving Wanindu Hasaranga.<\/p>\n
After Theekshana\u2019s double-wicket over, it was leg-spin bowler Hasaranga who returned with the ball in hand to haunt Pakistan. He took one wicket apiece in his first and second overs as Pakistan\u2019s procession continued.<\/p>\n
Saim Ayub, Salman Agha and Mohammed Haris were dismissed in quick succession by Hasaranga and Chameera, leaving the 2012 Asian champions in a tricky spot and 54 runs away from victory.<\/p>\n
It was then down to all-rounders Hussain Talat, whose batting against India was heavily criticised, and Muhammad Nawaz to take Pakistan home against the skilful Sri Lankan bowling attack.<\/p>\n
Talat scored 32 off 20 to calm Pakistan\u2019s nerves. At the other end, Nawaz hit 38 off 24 and ended the run chase with two huge sixes off Chameera to take Pakistan home with two overs to spare.<\/p>\n
![\"Pakistan's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AFP__20250923__76J99TE__v1__MidRes__CricketAsia2025T20PakSri-1758654889.jpg\")
Pakistan\u2019s fans celebrate their team\u2019s win [Sajjad Hussain\/AFP]<\/p>\n
Earlier, Pakistan\u2019s decision to bowl first paid off almost instantly when Shaheen Shah Afridi bowled out Kusal Mendis on the second ball of the match.<\/p>\n
He then dismissed Sri Lanka\u2019s leading run scorer, Pathum Nissanka, in his second over to leave the six-time champions reeling.<\/p>\n
Kusal Perera and captain Charith Asalanka put together a brief partnership before their dismissals.<\/p>\n
Kamindu Mendis, batting at number five, revived Sri Lanka\u2019s innings with a 44-ball fifty and helped them post 133-8 in 20 overs.<\/p>\n
Afridi, who hasn\u2019t been at his wicket-taking best, was the pick of Pakistan\u2019s bowlers as he took 3-28 in his four overs.<\/p>\n
Fellow pacer Haris Rauf and Talat also contributed with two wickets each.<\/p>\n
![\"Pakistan's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AP25266607833946-1758654741.jpg\")
Shaheen Shah Afridi celebrates the dismissal of Pathum Nissanka [Altaf Qadri\/AP]<\/p>\n
The win not only brought Pakistan two much-needed points but also a net run rate (NRR) boost as they moved up to second spot with an NRR of 0.226, second to India\u2019s 0.689.<\/p>\n
Bangladesh slipped from second to third and have an NRR of 0.121 while Sri Lanka were pushed closer to elimination with an NRR of -0.59 and zero points.<\/p>\n
They will now hope that Bangladesh beat both India (on Wednesday) and Pakistan (on Thursday) by big margins. Sri Lanka would then hope to beat holders India by an enormous margin on Friday and take the second finalist\u2019s spot.<\/p>\n
For Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the equation is much simpler as a second win for any of the two teams would see them through to the final on Sunday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The win in Abu Dhabi sends Pakistan second on the Super Fours points table while Sri Lanka are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":164620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[1724,64,63,740,12241,44,15299,588,85,1210,29994],"class_list":{"0":"post-164619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-asia","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cricket","12":"tag-middle-east","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pakistan","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-sri-lanka","18":"tag-united-arab-emirates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/a><\/p>\n