Afghanistan is on a rampage mode as they won 3 out of the last 4 matches in the World Cup. Now they defeated the 1996 champion Sri Lanka by 7 wickets.
Sri Lanka only managed 241/10 in 49.3 overs and the Afghans easily chased down the target in 45.2 overs and scored 242/3.
Afghani skipper Hashmatullah Shahidi after winning the toss goes for bowling.
Lankans got small contributions from many players but those were not converted into a big one. Pathum Nissanka (46 runs) missed his 5th consecutive fifty by just 4 runs. He was looking in great touch but unfortunately couldn’t carry that much longer. Kusal Mendis (39 runs) and Sadeera Samarawickrama (36 runs) provided some valuable runs in the middle of the overs.
Angelo Mathews (23 runs) and Maheesh Theekshana (29 runs) in the end batted little aggressively so as a result they were able to post 241 runs on the board in 49.3 overs by losing all the wickets.
Afghan bowlers did a fantastic job by restricting them to a below par score in a high scoring pitch. Fazalhaq Farooqi bowled his career best figures by grabbing 4 wickets by giving just 34 runs in his 10 overs. Mujeeb Ur Rahman got 2 wickets while Rashid Khan and Azmatullah Omarzai got 1 wicket each.
Afghans lost their inform batter Rahmanullah Gurbaz in the very first over. He departed in a duck. After that Ibrahim Zadran (39 runs) and Rahmat Shah (62 runs) provided 73 runs for the 2nd wicket. Rahmat continued his last match performance and hit 7 boundaries in his innings.
Then after that Hashmatullah Shahidi (58 runs) and Azmatullah Omarzai (73 runs) took his team to an easy win. Both of them made a partnership of 111 runs. Azmatullah hit 6 fours and 3 sixes in his innings while Shahidi hit 2 fours and 1 six. They achieved the target in 45.2 overs and scored 242 runs by losing 3 wickets.
Dilshan Madushanka got 2 wickets while Kasun Rajitha got 1 wicket.