Sri Lanka needed 274 to stay alive in this series and got there with 19 balls in hand. Vishmi Gunaratne made 123, Harshitha Samarawickrama finished unbeaten on 100, and the two of them added 203 for the second wicket at the Mahinda Rajapaksa International Stadium in Hambantota on Saturday.
The eight-wicket win levels the three-match ODI series at 1-1.
Pakistan had done plenty right with the bat. Sidra Amin batted through the innings for an unbeaten 100 off 120 balls, Ayesha Zafar hit 49 off 45, and 273 for 5 looked a long way beyond a Sri Lanka side that had managed 210 for 9 on the same ground two days earlier. It never came close to being enough.
Pakistan lost Sadaf Shamas to a run-out in the fifth over and Gull Feroza for 27 in the twelfth, which left Amin and Zafar to give the innings a shape. They found one. Zafar was the aggressor, clearing the ropes twice among her five boundaries, and the pair had put on 78 by the time Kavisha Dilhari bowled her one short of a fifty.
Amin simply kept going. Her fifty took 80 balls, her hundred 120, and she was still there at the end with 13 fours to her name. Muneeba Ali made 45 in an 88-run stand alongside her, Fatima Sana came in for an 18-ball 25, and Pakistan took a little over 70 from their final ten overs to finish on 273.
Sri Lanka’s bowling was tidy without ever threatening a collapse. Chethana Vimukthi conceded 26 from her six overs, Dewmi Vihanga bowled two maidens in a ten-over spell, and Rashmika Sewwandi went for 32 on ODI debut. Athapaththu, Vimukthi, Inoka Ranaweera and Dilhari took a wicket each.
Chamari Athapaththu edged Fatima Sana behind for 1 in the fifth over. In most Sri Lanka chases that is where the trouble starts, and the scoreboard read 20 for 1 with 254 still required.
What followed was the most controlled batting of the match. Gunaratne reached her fifty off 55 balls and her hundred off 107, hitting 11 fours and a six. Samarawickrama was slower away, needing 74 balls for her fifty, and then took only 45 more to reach three figures. Neither gave Pakistan an opening.
Umm-e-Hani, Syeda Aroob Shah and Tasmia Rubab went wicketless between them, and by the time Nashra Sandhu drew Gunaratne out of her crease to have her stumped for 123 in the 40th over, the stand was worth 203 and Sri Lanka needed 51 from 64 balls.
Dilhari made that a formality, coming in and striking five fours in an unbeaten 40 off 33. Samarawickrama got to her hundred with the game already gone, which is usually when the personal milestones arrive in a chase like this one.
Source: SportsAdda
-Agencies
