Sri Lanka vs Afghanistan 1st Innings Update:
The much awaited Asia Cup has finally started and in the first contest of the tournament, we have Sri Lanka and Afghanistan playing against each other at the Dubai International Stadium. Here in this article, we talk about Sri Lanka vs Afghanistan 1st Innings Update.
Winning the toss, Afghanistan doing the typical as in Dubai, elected to bowl first. Coming to bat, Sri Lanka only managed to score 105 runs in 19.4 before getting all out. Afghanistan now needs 106 runs for the win.
It was not the best day for Sri Lanka as just like the other matches they played in this year, it was a flop from the bat with a couple players trying to get the team on track. During the death overs, Karunaratne was team’s saviour as he grabbed the opportunity, scoring 28 runs which looked impossible. The batting overall couldn’t manage to hit more number of boundaries.
In the last five overs, Sri Lanka managed to score 35 runs for the loss of 1 wicket. It was a good fight back as in the 15th over, the team’s score was 75 for 9 wickets. The highest partnership of the innings was between Rajapaksa and MD Gunathilaka who contributed 44 runs to the innings.
Mujeeb Ur Rahman bowled the 17th and his last over of the game and conceded 11 runs from it. No wickets came in this over. A total of 3 runs came off the 18th over of the innings bowled by Fazalhaq Farooqi.
The 19th over of the innings was bowled by Naveen-ul-Haq who bowled an average over, giving away 8 runs. The 20th over of the innings was bowled by Farooqi and it was an impressive one. He finally took wicket on the 4th ball of the over, bowling Sri Lanka out 2 balls short of 20 overs, ending day with figures 3.4-0-11-3.
The run rate at the end of 20th over is 5.33. Bhanuka Rajapaksa scored highest number of runs by hitting a six and 5 fours at a strike rate of 131. Afghanistan now needs 106 runs to win.
