That brings the curtains on our live coverage of this Emerging Teams Asia Cup 2024 game between Afghanistan A and Sri Lanka A. For now, it's Soumarya Dutta signing off on behalf of my co-commentator Hiren besides our Scorer/Analyst Ghanendra Thakur. See you soon!
Sediqullah Atal (Player of the Match): " First of all, very happy with the win. I think we were 10-15 runs short in the end. The ball was coming well onto the bat and we made use of that."
Player of the Match - Sediqullah Atal
Darwish Rasooli (Afghanistan A Captain) - "Congratulations to the team! We did loose a lot of wickets in the back end but the bowlers fought back really well. It was a good learning curve and we will need to improve more. We will focus on running between the wickets and look to get better in that aspect. "
Nuwanidu Fernando (Sri Lanka A Captain): "Yeah, we bowled well but we were poor in the field and that is where we lost the game. Dushan Hemantha bowled well and restricted them to 166. I brought him late because of the two left handers. My runout was the key in chase. We need to improve our fielding."
It's time for the post match presentation!
10:28 PM IST and 9:58 PM Local Time- Afghanistan A have clinched an edge of the seat thriller here by 11 runs. They've defended 166 and they bowled out Sri Lanka A for 155. The game kept shifting from one end to the other and in the end, the Afghan bowlers held their nerves. Bilal Sami bowled the final over and he had 13 to defend. He did it easily by picking up the final wicket.
Lahiru Udara was dismissed early on in the run chase by Ghazanfar for Sri Lanka A but Skipper Nuwanidu Fernando built up a solid partnership with Yashoda Lanka. The pair posted exactly 50 runs for the second wicket before the opening batter Lanka was dismissed for a modest 15 by Faridoon Dawoodzai. Sri Lanka A scored 53 from the powerplay.
Once the powerplay was done, Nuwanidu Fernando switched gears and he started to go for the big shots. He was given good company by Rathnayake who kept taking the singles and had the scoreboard ticking over. Fernando got to his 50 in the 10th over but he was run out soon courtesy some miscommunication. This opened up the game for Afghanistan.
Allah Ghazanfar picked up Sahan Arachchige while Pavan Rathnayake's painstaking innings of 12 from 21 balls was brought to an end by Ashraf. Afghanistan picked up the wickets in regular intervals during the middle overs to bring the game back in balance. The equation was down to 53 runs from 30 balls at the end of the 15th over mark.
The collapse of hubris began for Sri Lanka A post this phase of the innings as they kept losing the wickets. Ahan Wickramasinghe was the only one to put up a fight as he scored a quickfire 31 from 18 balls but he ran out of partners. For Afghanistan A, Sami picked up a couple and Dawoodzai got three to become the pick of the bowlers. Ghazanfar picked up two wickets while Ashraf chipped in with a wicket.