\u201cThe players played well. The way we started and the early wicket losses\u2026 credit goes to Agha and Talat,\u201d says skipper
\nislamabad
\nPakistan skipper Shaheen Shah Afridi heaped plaudits on all-rounders Salman Ali Agha and Hussain Talat, as well as pacer Haris Rauf, after their match-winning performances sealed a tense six-run triumph over Sri Lanka in the opening ODI at the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Tuesday.
\nPut into bat first, the Green Shirts, after getting off to a shaky start, had slipped to 95\/4 in 23.2 overs, courtesy of Wanindu Hasaranga\u2019s triple-wicket spell.
\nHowever, a 138-run partnership for the fifth wicket between Agha and Talat anchored their innings, while an unbeaten 66-run stand between the former and Mohammad Nawaz eventually steered them to a formidable total.
\nAgha remained the top-scorer for the Green Shirts with an unbeaten century, making 105 off 87 deliveries with the help of nine fours, followed by Talat, who made a 63-ball 62, while Nawaz chipped in with 36 not out from 23 balls.
\nSpeaking at the post-match presentation, Shaheen revealed that the hosts were initially vying to register around 250 on the board, but credited Agha and Talat for leading them almost to the 300-run mark.
\n\u201cThe players played well. The way we started and the early wicket losses\u2026 credit goes to Agha and Talat,\u201d said Shaheen.
\n\u201cThe way we started with the bat, our dot-ball percentage was very high. We were looking to score 250-260 the way we started, but 300 is a big total,\u201d he added.
\nThe second innings followed the same pattern as Sri Lanka were in a dominant position until the completion of 11 overs, but Pakistan forced a comeback through pacer Rauf, who halted their progress with three wickets in his two overs.
\nHaris eventually returned economical bowling figures of 4\/49 in his 10 overs, while fellow pacer Naseem Shah and fast-bowling all-rounder Faheem Shah lent valuable support by taking two wickets each, helping Pakistan successfully defend the total and edge Sri Lanka by six runs.
\n\u201cBut more credit goes to Haris Rauf; the way he started was really awesome. Haris is always a wicket-taker for Pakistan. He was our top performer in white-ball cricket. Haris is our main bowler,\u201d Shaheen continued.
\nNotably, Haris\u2019s fourth wicket came with the support of Babar Azam, who took a sensational one-handed catch at wide slip to dismiss Sadeera Samarawickrama.
\n\u201cBabar\u2019s catch was like Superman,\u201d Shaheen said of the one-handed blinder to conclude his post-match interview with a smile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe players played well. The way we started and the early wicket losses\u2026 credit goes to Agha and Talat,\u201d says skipper islamabad Pakistan skipper Shaheen Shah Afridi heaped plaudits on all-rounders Salman Ali Agha and Hussain Talat, as well as pacer Haris Rauf, after their match-winning performances sealed a tense six-run triumph over Sri Lanka …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":89530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89519","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\/89519","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=89519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":89531,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89519\/revisions\/89531"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}