Sri Lanka wrote a special chapter in their cricketing history after winning the Asia Cup 2022 title by defeating Pakistan in the final by 23 runs. The Sri Lankans outplayed the much-fancied Pakistani team despite losing the crucial toss in Dubai.
Dasun Shanaka and his team displayed remarkable composure and temperament to recover from some difficult situations during the tournament including a heavy defeat to Afghanistan in their opening game. Sri Lanka won five matches in a row, including the final, to clinch the Asia Cup title for the sixth time in their history.
Batting first after losing the toss, Sri Lanka recovered from a disastrous position of 58/5 to post 170/6 thanks to Bhanuka Rajapaksa's unbeaten 71 and Wanindu Hasaranga's 36. Haris Rauf bowled at express speed and was rewarded with figures of 3/29 but Naseem Shah and Mohammad Hasnain had an off day conceding more than 40 runs each.
The Pakistani fielding performance also left a lot to be desired at the end and that resulted in Sri Lanka getting not only extra runs but also the momentum on their side. Pakistan's response with the bat was no better as except Mohammad Rizwan (55) and Iftikhar Ahmed (32), none of the other batters crossed 13.
Even the duo took 49 and 31 balls respectively for their runs which put rest of the batting line-up under a lot of pressure and it showed as Pakistan collapsed from 93/2 to 147 all out to lose the final.
Pakistan cricket fraternity was expectedly dejected by the performance of the national team and criticised their performance but also graciously congratulated Sri Lanka on their victory.
Here are the tweets:
