Rawalpindi
\nKusal Mendis guided Sri Lanka to a convincing eight-wicket win over Pakistan, scoring an unbeaten half-century in the third and final T20I at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
\nPakistan, however, won the series 2-1 after clinching victories in the first two games.
\nSet to chase a 169-run target, the visitors comfortably knocked the winning runs for the loss of just two wickets and 17 balls to spare, courtesy of an unbeaten partnership for the third wicket between Kamindu Mendis and captain Kusal.
\nSri Lanka, however, got off to a shaky start to the pursuit as Mohammad Imran Randhawa trapped right-handed opener Lahiru Udara (one) lbw on the first delivery of the second over with 15 runs on the board.
\nUdara\u2019s dismissal paved the way for Kusal to walk out at No.3, and the captain, alongside opener Sineth Jayawardena, put Sri Lanka into a commanding position by raising a 59-run partnership for the second wicket, which came at a brisk pace.
\nArafat Minhas eventually broke the threatening partnership on the last delivery of the eighth over by dismissing Jayawardena, who made a brisk 38 off 26 deliveries with the help of five fours and two sixes.
\nFollowing Jayawardena\u2019s departure, Kusal joined forces with Kamindu and the experienced pair batted commandingly to retain the momentum in Sri Lanka\u2019s favour before ultimately steering the touring side to victory with an unbeaten 92-run partnership.
\nCaptain Kusal remained the top-scorer for Sri Lanka in the run chase with an unbeaten 87 off 48 deliveries, studded with nine fours and four sixes. He was closely followed by Kamindu, who made 40 not out from 27 balls, smashing four boundaries.
\nFor Pakistan, Imran and Minhas could pick up one wicket apiece in the fixture.
\nPut into bat first, the home side accumulated 168-8 in their 20 overs, courtesy of a gutsy knock by their captain Farhan.
\nThe Green Shirts got off to a spirited start to their innings as their opening pair of Fakhar Zaman and Farhan, put together 34 runs in just three overs.
\nBut Eshan Malinga struck twice, dismissing Fakhar (12) and in-form Maaz Sadaqat (0) in the fourth over to halt Pakistan\u2019s flamboyant start.
\nFollowing the back-to-back dismissals, Hasan Nawaz joined skipper Farhan in the middle, and the duo batted cautiously to add 33 runs to the home side\u2019s total until the former fell victim to Vijayakanth Viyaskanth in the ninth over after scoring a 17-ball 16.
\nPakistan then suffered another setback in the subsequent over as experienced Sri Lanka all-rounder Dasun Shanaka sent back their wicketkeeper batter Khawaja Nafay for just three.
\nShanaka struck twice more in his next two overs, dismissing all-rounder Mohammad Imran (6) and Abdul Samad (15), and reduced Pakistan to 102-6.
\nFollowing the middle-order collapse, Farhan joined forces with emerging all-rounder Arafat Minhas, and the duo bolstered Pakistan\u2019s total at the backend with a blistering 66-run partnership, which culminated with the captain\u2019s dismissal off Nuwan Thushara on the penultimate delivery of the innings.
\nFarhan top-scored for Pakistan with a quickfire 76 off 47 deliveries, studded with seven fours and three sixes.
\nThushara also struck on the final delivery, cleaning up No.9 Razaullah (0) with a full-pitched delivery, to curtail the home side below the 170-run mark.
\nMinhas, meanwhile, returned after scoring an unbeaten 34 off 20 deliveries, laced with two sixes and as many fours.
\nShanaka was the standout bowler for Sri Lanka as he picked up three wickets for just 21 runs in her four overs, followed by Malinga and Thushara with two each, while Viyaskanth made one scalp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rawalpindi Kusal Mendis guided Sri Lanka to a convincing eight-wicket win over Pakistan, scoring an unbeaten half-century in the third and final T20I at Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Tuesday. Pakistan, however, won the series 2-1 after clinching victories in the first two games. Set to chase a 169-run target, the visitors comfortably knocked the winning …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":104282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-104298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104298"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104317,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104298\/revisions\/104317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}