Afghanistan are touring Sri Lanka for a short series of 3 matches of one day international matches. It is a crucial few months ahead for both the sides as they look to get into rhythm for the ODI World Cup to be held in India at the end of the year. This series is important for Sri Lanka as they have to take the qualifying route to make it to the main stages along with former world champions side West Indies and Zimbabwe.
The story as it happened –
Dasun Shanaka the Sri Lanka skipper won the toss and chose to bat first. There were two debutants for the home team in the form of Dushan Hemantha and latest bowling sensation Matheesha Pathirana. For the visitors there was no Rashid Khan who was out of action for the first 2 games of the series because of fitness concerns.
Noor Ahmed leaves Shanaka shocked –
Dasun Shanaka and Noor Ahmed just a few days ago were sharing the dressing room at Gujarat Titans in the IPL. On Friday they were in the opposite sides for their respective nations. The moment of the game when Noor Ahmed was bowling over the wicket to the Sri Lanka skipper.
Shanaka had hit the previous ball in the 43rd over of the 1st innings for a four. Ahmed though had his revenge the next ball. The young left arm wrist spinner landed one ball on the leg stump only for the ball to take heavy turn to dislodge the off and middle stump. Shanaka was out for 17 off 16 balls with 1 four to his name.
Charith Asalanka leads Sri Lanka to 268 –
Fazalhaq Farooqi got the ball rolling when he got the wickets of Dimuth Karunaratne for 4 and Kusal Mendis for 11. Former skipper Angelo Mathews fell for 12 caught behind off Fareed Ahmed to leave the home team at 61/3. Mujeeb Ur Rahman then got the wicket of Pathum Nissanka for 38 to leave Sri Lanka at 84/4.
That’s when Dhananjaya De Silva and Asalanka combined to add 99 for the 5th wicket. De Silva was out for 51 bowled by Nabi. The lead scorer for the Sri Lankans was Asalanka who scored 91 off 65 balls with 12 fours in his knock to take Sri Lanka to 268. Farooqi and Fareed Ahmed picked 2 wickets while Nabi, Azmatullah, Mujeeb and Noor Ahmed picked a wicket each.
Twitter reacts –
The amazing delivery bowled by Noor Ahmed to Shanaka had the fans going crazy on Twitter and you can read all the tweets below.
— Spider Rashid (@RashidSpider) June 2, 2023
Noor ...What a strike ,man.Shanaka gone
— Pradeep (@dead_rabbito) June 2, 2023
Asalanka has played a good innings so far. Its time he gets going to put a decent total on the board. Also a century is on the cards. #SLvAFG #Asalanka #Century #CricketTwitter
— SECOND SLIP (@MerchantCricket) June 2, 2023
Noor Ahmed's magic not working for Afghanistan. It's high time Hardik Pandya becomes the captain of AFG to bring out the best out of their bowlers. #Noor #Hardik #Afghanistan #SLvAFG #CricketTwitter
— SECOND SLIP (@MerchantCricket) June 2, 2023
Despite the @OfficialSLC top order struggling a bit, we’ve managed a good score so far. This is a strong, well mature and balanced team. Some will fail on some days, other days they’ll shine. This team should stay. #SLvAFG
— questionnaire (@thecosmos7777) June 2, 2023
A player like Dasun won’t get a better platform than this to play big shots and score runs for team and yet he failed again. Another day another failure from him . #SLvAFG
— Cricket Tamizhan (@CricketTamizhan) June 2, 2023