A scintillating unbroken double century stand between Yousuf Youhana and Shoaib Malik enabled Pakistan to inflect a debilitating eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka at the National Stadium here on Wednesday.
With three wins on the trot, Pakistan managed to seal a place in the final of the Paktel Cup 2004 Tri-nation Cricket Tournament. The competition designed on a pattern where the three competing countries namely Pakistan Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka square off among each other twice with the top two qualifiers to contest the final.
Thus, Pakistan last tussle against Sri Lanka to complete the preliminaries is only of academic interest.
At the outset, Sri Lanka skipper Marvan Atapattu called correctly on the spin of the coin and elected to make first use of what looked like a perfect strip. But they were restricted to a modest 232 for nine in the allotted 50 overs. In turn, Pakistan cruised to victory by posting 233 for two wickets with eight balls to spare.
Yousuf Youhana and Shoaib Malik piled up exactly 200 runs in 158 balls. On the one hand, the elegant Youhana notched up an unbeaten well-crafted 107 off 121 balls laced with seven classical boundaries and a huge six. It was also Youhana's 10th century in limited-overs internationals.
On the other hand, Shoaib Malik finished the day with 86 not out. It came off 103 deliveries studded with three fours and a six.
At the finale, Shoaib was named the 'Man-of-the-Match for his brilliant all round performance. The composed Shoaib had earlier snapped up three wickets for just 32 runs in his stint of 10 overs.
The eye-catching batting display by Yousuf Youhana and Shoaib Malik came after they steadied a rocking boat with both Pakistan openers falling with just 33 runs on the board.
However, Yousuf Youhana was given a charmed life when he was on 87. Caminda Vaas dropped a skyer from him at deep backward square leg and the bowler to suffer was seamer Farveez Mahroof. But in all fairness to Vaas, he can be excused for the blunder as the sun was directly staring him in the eyes and he may have lost sight of the ball.
From that point onwards, there was no stopping Yousuf Youhana's heroics. When Youhana had compiled 66 runs in his knock, he had reached the milestone completing 6,000 runs in his 178th limited-overs international. Thereby, joining the ranks of Inzamamul Haq, Javed Miandad, Saeed Anwar, Salim Malik and Ejaz Ahmed who had performed the feet before him.
In the morning, the Sri Lankan innings got off to a jingly-jangly star as they saw opener Avishka Gunawardene perished for one off only the seventh delivery of the match.
Nonetheless, that setback did not unnerve Jayasuriya or Marvan Atapattu as they set about to repair the damage with a 109-run partnership for the second wicket off 144 balls. But Jayasuriya was unlucky to be run out in a miss understanding with Atapattu His 53 coming off 85 balls and contained five fours and a six.
At 129 for three Atapattu was sent back for an individual 46 off 75 balls aided with three boundaries. Thereafter, the lone fighter Kumar Sangakkara revive their efforts but he fell for a 52-ball 38 with two boundaries to make the score 194 for six, the Sri Lanka innings was in disarray, and that was that.
SCOREBOARD
SRI LANKA
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A. Gunawardene b Naveed 1
S. Jayasuriya run out 53
M. Atapattu c Inzamam b Malik 46
K. Sangakkara b Sami 38
M. Jayawardene b Malik 18
T. Dilshan c Younis b Malik 4
U. Chandana b Afridi 9
C. Vaas b Shoaib 11
F. Maharoof b Sami 15
K. Lokuarachchi not out 4
Extras: (b4, lb11, nb4, w14) 33
Total: (for nine wkts) 232
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DID NOT BAT: N. Zoysa
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-4, 2-113, 3-129, 4-165, 5-177, 6-194, 7-232
BOWLING: Sami 10-1-41-2, Naveed 7-0-30-1, Shoaib 8-0-46-1, Razzaq 5-0-26-0, Malik 10-0-32-3
OVERS: 50
PAKISTAN
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Salman Butt c Atapattu b Zoysa 17
Yasir Hameed lbw b Vaas 13
Shoaib Malik not out 86
Yousuf Youhana not out 107
Extras: (lb6, w4) 10
Total: (for two wickets) 233
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DID NOT BAT: Inzamam-ul Haq, Shahid Afridi, Younis Khan, Abdul Razzaq, Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammad Sami, Rana Naveedul Hassan
FALL OF WICKETS: 1-33, 2-33
BOWLING: Vaas 10-0-24-1, Zoysa 8-0-31-1, Maharoof 7.4-0-41-0, Lokuarachchi 6-0-36-0, Jayasuriya 7-0-40-0, Chandana 4-0-31-0, Dilshan 6-0-24-0
OVERS: 48.4
RESULT: Pakistan won by eight wickets
TOSS: Sri Lanka
UMPIRES: Mark Benson (ENG), Asad Rauf (PAK)
TV UMPIRE: Nadeem Ghauri (PAK)
ICC MATCH REFEREE: Jeff Crowe (NZ)
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