Pakistan and Sri Lanka are facing off in the 8th match of the ICC World Cup 2023 tournament being played in Hyderabad on October 10. Pakistan won their first match against the Netherlands, but Sri Lanka lost to South Africa.
Dasun Shanaka won the toss and chose to bat first on a batting beauty of a pitch at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Uppal, Hyderabad. Maheesh Theekshana returned to bolster the Lanka bowling. Pakistan left out out-of-form Fakhar Zaman and brought in Abdullah Shafique.
Kusal Perera failed once again as he was dismissed for a duck by Hassan Ali. But then Pathum Nissanka (51) added 102 runs with Kusal Mendis for the second wicket before falling to Shadab Khan.
But the stand-out player for Sri Lanka proved to be Kusal Mendis. He was coming off a 158 against Afghanistan in the warm-up match and a cracking 76 against South Africa in the chase of 429 runs in Delhi.
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He made his half-century in 40 balls and then switched gears. He went after every Pakistani bowler against him and in a flurry of boundaries and sixes, reached his century in 65 balls.
Mendis was looking good for a big score and had even hit Hassan Ali for back-to-back sixes before getting out caught trying to complete the hat-trick. Mendis made 122 in 77 balls with 6 sixes and 14 fours to his name.
This was the fastest century in a World Cup game by any Sri Lankan batter. He got out when the Sri Lankan score was 218/3 in 28.5 overs.
But he received unanimous applause from the cricket fraternity on social media for his scintillating knock.
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