Cricket LIVE update, Pakistan v Sri Lanka: Visitors defeat hosts in a nail biter - ICC World Cup 2011
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758 in a crunch game of the group ‘A’ of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 at Colombo as the green shirts defeated the hosts by a thrilling margin of 11 runs. This is a huge victory for Pakistan as it is
going to boost their confidence immensely. Pakistan’s victory was led by the skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 who struck in regular intervals during the middle overs, to halt Sri Lanka’s progress.
The hosts were off to a steady start through Dilshan and Tharanga, however both of them could not gain a lot of momentum at the start of the innings but they did well to keep the wickets intact. They scored 76 runs for the first wicket partnership
but after the departure of the openers, Sri Lanka lost wickets in a bunch to hand over the advantage back to Pakistan.
Sangakara and Silva combined together for the fifth wicket partnership and scored 73 runs but both of them looked edgy today and never looked threatening throughout the partnership. However they found momentum during the later stages of his innings
but that was a little too late for the home team. He scored 57 runs off 79 balls with the help of five boundaries.
Even after a late cameo by Nuwan Kulasekra, Sri Lanka managed 266 runs for the loss of nine wickets in their 50 overs, falling short by only 11 runs.
Shahid Afridi led from the front and took four wickets after giving away only 33 runs in his 10 overs. The biggest positive for Pakistan was the spell of Shoaib Akhtar who bowled brilliantly after a long time, which is a great sign of things to come
for Pakistan. Akhtar picked up a couple of crucial wickets in Sri Lanka’s innings.
Majority of the cricket pundits were not giving any chance to Pakistan in this World Cup but the men in green have shown today that they are going to be a big force in this tournament as beating Sri Lanka at home is no mean achievement. This victory
should also improve Pakistan’s chances of ending up high in group ‘A’ so that they can play the weaker team of group ‘B’ in the quarter-final.
Sri Lanka on the other hand would be disappointed with their effort today but they have time to re-gather themselves in the mega event as they are a quality unit and one expects them to bounce back strongly in the tournament.
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