Dushan Hemantha’s brilliant spell of spin bowling shattered Pakistan Shaheens’s dreams of defending their Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Men’s Emerging Teams Asia Cup on Friday (25) as Sri Lanka won the first semi-final by seven wickets.

Pakistan Shaheens won the toss and opted to bat first in order to put an impressive total on the board.

However, their intentions didn’t bear fruit as the Sri Lankan bowlers applied relentless pressure and restricted them to just 135 runs. The target was never going to be much for the Lankan Lions and they chased it down with 21 balls to spare.

Hemantha was the star of the show as he bamboozled the Pakistan batters with his fizzing leg breaks. Hemantha accounted for Omair bin Yousuf, Abdul Samad, Arafat Minhas, and Haider Ali, and finished with bowling figures of 4/21 in his four overs.

Yousuf was the only player who staged a fight against the Sri Lankan bowlers at the Al Amerat Cricket Ground Oman Cricket (Ministry Turf 1). He scored five fours and four sixes during his 68-run knock off 46 balls at a strike rate of 147.82. 

Two of the Pakistan players, i.e. Samad and Qasim Akram, bagged ducks. Skipper Mohammad Haris came to bat number three instead of opening the innings. However, his move didn’t come to fruition as he scored just six runs and got out to Eshan Malinga.

Nipun Ransika and Malinga also supported Hemantha very well as they accounted for two batters each and finished with figures of 2/21 and 2/28 in their four overs, respectively.

The chase didn’t turn out to be too big a deal for Sri Lanka ‘A’. Although Pakistan Shaheens dismissed Yashodha Lanka in the third over, a 64-run stand for the second wicket between wicketkeeper-batter Lahiru Udara and Ahan Wickramasinghe killed the game for Pakistan.

(Source: Agencies)