Sri Lanka yet again failed to end their losing streak in the ongoing tour of UAE against Pakistan after they lost a closely fought 2nd T20I by two wickets. This loss meant that they are now 2-0 and have lost the three-match T20 leg as well after having already suffered a whitewash in the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series.
However, unlike other contests in the series so far, the previous game was a refreshing sight for Lankan fans as the relatively young side had Pakistan in all sort so of trouble before things went wrong.
Head coach Nic Pothas was happy to witness such motivating performance.
“Yes, you can say this is the best match we have played. It is funny because we arrived here and played two good Test matches. Very happy with those but probably we let ourselves down in the five ODIs. Then this game was super and a bitter pill to swallow,” said Nic Pothas, Sri Lanka’s coach, after the defeat.
Sri Lanka had a good day overall but committed a couple of errors that turned out to be decisive eventually.
At the start, the top order laid out a good platform for the middle order as Sri Lanka stood at 106 for 2. But, things went downhill from there on the side was quickly reduced to 124 for 9.
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The batting performance was pretty similar to the 1st T20I wholly speaking. However, the bowler did not give up that easily and came pretty close to defending 124. Led by Thisara Perera, Sri Lanka kept picking wickets at regular intervals to keep Pakistan nervous about their fate in the contest.
“You got to take wickets if you have to win with 124 on the board. I don’t think run rate would have come into the equation out there. The guys did well and they put their batsman under lot of pressure. One thing I got to say is you got to take your hats-off to both fielding coaches. You will not see better fielding display from two subcontinent teams,” added Pothas.
Perera was the pick of the bowlers, scalping wickets of Ahmed Shehzad (27) and Shoaib Malik (9) in the middle overs to end with figures of 3 for 24.
However, his good job was undone by the late surge of skipper Sarfraz Ahmed who anchored the innings before young leg-spinner Shadab Khan gave the knockout blow with his attacking cameo of 16 off just eight balls.
“Collapses happen when you have got a pretty inexperienced side. Yes, we got a start and probably we could have done a little better. But the team has learnt very quickly and they have done that from that one game and from this one they will learn again. When you put an effort I think I can take it,” pointed out the Sri Lankan head coach.