Player of the Match
Player of the Match

Match Centre

Statistics

Best performances - Batsmen

Babar Azam
Babar Azam
103(131) 5x4 - 0x6
Control %85%
  • Productive Shot
  • flick
  • 33 runs
  • 1x4 - 0x6
6 4 16 3 17 5 20 32
Shoaib Malik
Shoaib Malik
81(61) 5x4 - 2x6
Control %90%
  • Productive Shot
  • cover drive
  • 21 runs
  • 1x4 - 1x6
14 0 9 1 21 3 12 21

Best performances - Bowlers

Hasan Ali
Hasan Ali
O9
M0
R36
W3
Eco4.00
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF
1W
Rumman Raees
O9
M1
R49
W3
Eco5.44
RHB
OFFLEG
1W
  • FTFULL TOSS
  • YYORKER
  • FFULL LENGTH
  • GGOOD LENGTH
  • SGSHORT OF GOOD LENGTH
  • SSHORT LENGTH
LHB
LEGOFF
1W
1W

Scorer: Thilak Ram | Commentator: Shashank Kishore

END OF OVER:
50 | 7 Runs | SL: 209/8 (84 runs required, RR: 4.18)

  • Suranga Lakmal7 (9b)
  • Akila Dananjaya50 (72b)
  • Hasan Ali9-0-36-3
  • Rumman Raees9-1-49-3

10.35pm The snooze fest is over. Fine, fine win from Pakistan. Babar laid the ground work, Malik lent the finishing touches. Then with the ball, Raees did the early damage before Hasan Ali came into his own. Sri Lanka were only briefly in it, but the procession which they witnessed time and again during the series against India continued here in the Middle East. This is Sri Lanka's eighth consecutive ODI defeat. Plenty of work to do. On that note, this is Shashank Kishore signing off on behalf of Akshay Gopalakrishnan. Do join us for the second ODI on 16th October in Abu Dhabi. Until then, it's goodbye from the cricinfo desk. Cheers!

If they were to look for some consolation, they'd consider Thirimanne's half-century as one of the entries. Akila Dananjaya, who could've so easily looked to smash the ball, dug in and fought it out to bring up a maiden fifty of his own. But there was a sense of inevitability to this chase more than halfway in. Sri Lanka never looked to be in the game.

On a lighter note, I really wish someone's capturing all these moods of Mickey Arthur. I reckon just from this tour, there are plenty of pictures of varying emotions. Would be a fun compilation if someone manages to pull it off

Time for the presentation now

Sarfraz Ahmed: When you lose one series, the first match of the next series becomes very important. Credit to the boys. We've got a lot of bowling options. This bodes well for us. The way we've done today, we'll look to carry this template forward. If you set up runs on the board, with this bowling attack we can defend well. We will of course decide based on conditions. There is a lot of quality in this side.

Shoaib Malik is the Player of the Match for his 61-ball 81.

"In the middle overs, Sri Lanka were bowling well, so strike rotation was key," he says. "I knew I could cover up in the end. Credit to Babar and Hafeez. That was the innings that gave us the confidence. End of the day, the bowlers did pretty well. Being an experienced player, it's my responsibility to turn up when things are down. I didn't take any pressure. My role was to rotate strike. Those few boundaries helped our total."

Upul Tharanga: Pakistan batted really well. At one stage, we thought we could restrict them to below 270. We haven't batted to potential in the last few series, we haven't been able to bat 50 overs. It's time we deliver.

49.6
1
Hasan Ali to Lakmal, 1 run, slices this full delivery down to third man courtesy a misfield at point. Pakistan now have their fifth successive ODI win
49.5
1
Hasan Ali to Dananjaya, 1 run, there's the fifty. Looked to clear his front leg and pull this skiddy bouncer but could only get some bat on it as it rolled no more than a couple of yards away. He scampered through even as Hasan hared across to prevent it.

Sarfraz is mindful of the fifty, so brings in the field. There's cover, short third man, point, mid-off, mid-on, midwicket. This should be fun

49.4
1
Hasan Ali to Lakmal, 1 run, thick inside edge on an attempted slog to deep square leg. Wanted to go over long-on again. Dananjaya walks to the striker's end.
49.3
4
Hasan Ali to Lakmal, FOUR, picks this short ball well. Hammered from outside off to the wide long-on boundary. Dananjaya's wait for a maiden ODI fifty continues
49.2
0
Hasan Ali to Lakmal, no run, deceived by the slower one. Much fuller on length, he was backing away to go over cover
49.1
0
Hasan Ali to Lakmal, no run, looks to smash this over midwicket, gets a thick inside edge onto the pad. This was a length ball so he didn't get anywhere underneath that as he attempted the cross-batted swipe

Losing streak

8

No. of consecutive ODIs lost by Sri Lanka, including this defeat. This is their joint-longest losing streak. They had lost 8 between 1998 and 1999 as well.

A slow hundred

128

No. of balls taken by Babar Azam to get to his century in this ODI, the slowest of his six centuries and the slowest by any Pakistan batsman in last five years.

Limited overs specialist

52.05

Babar Azam's average in limited overs internationals this year (56.90 in ODIs & 45.14 in T20Is). Whereas in Tests he's averaged just 16.72 in 12 inns with five ducks.

Sri Lanka's bad run

4-16

Sri Lanka's win-loss record in ODIs this year, in 21 games before this match. They enter the series with seven defeats in a row.