T20 World Cup 2022, Match 32: Afghanistan vs Sri Lanka- Talking points and Who Said What?

Afghanistan’s struggle of making big at the T20 World Cup 2022 continued. They have zero wins from three games in the tournament and had high hopes for the fourth one against Sri Lanka, but things fell out of place as the Asian Champions bagged their second victory of the tournament by defeating the Mohammad Nabi-led side by six wickets.

Though they have one more game to play in the Super-12, Sri Lanka put curtains on Afghanistan’s hopes of making it to the next round, because two of their matches were abandoned which has taken them to the bottom of the points table. With this win, Sri Lanka have now bagged two crucial points and have risen to third place, from what was sixth (last) previously.

Before listening to skippers of both sides, we list some of the talking points from the game

Wanindu Hasaranga’s form

The spinner has been in great touch of late and has proved to be a major asset for the islanders. He has managed to take wickets under pressure, and he repeated something similar this time around while facing Afghanistan. He continued his run in the tournament and jumped to the top spot after picking up three wickets in the game. Hasaranga continues to be the leading wicket-taker for not just Sri Lanka, but also in the tournament.

Troublesome Afghani Bowling?

Afghanistan’s bowling unit could not create an impact in the game as Sri Lanka successfully chased down the target of 145 runs. The bowlers, who had put cricketing giants England under trouble in their campaign opener, failed to make it big this time. Mujeeb Ur Rahman and Rashid Khan picked up two wickets each, but that was it for Afghanistan. Their batting unit held the nerves in the first innings to complete the 20-over quota, but their bowling unit could not do justice to the efforts.

Sri Lanka's Batting Saviors

In almost all the games that Sri Lanka have played so far, they have had at least one batter stepping up to the rescue, for the task of scoring runs, after the rest of the lineup fails to make an impact. It was Kusal Mendis against Ireland, Pathum Nissanka and Charith Asalanka against Australia, and now Dhananjaya de Silva (66* off 42) against Afghanistan. Even after a batting failure, one of the players emerges as the batting hero.

Losing captain, Mohammad Nabi said:

The power play was a good one for us with the bat, we did put some decent runs on the board, the wicket was slow too, but we did not hit the right lengths or bowl in the right lines, and unfortunately, we lost the game there. We have one more game left, it has been slightly disappointing not to get games under the belt because of rain, but hopefully, we put up a good show against Australia.

Winning captain, Dasun Shanaka said:

It was a pretty good performance from us today, we bowled well, Wanindu, especially with his last over, was special and Dhananjaya did a really good job in getting us over the line. We feel that we have found the consistency required and will definitely go all out to win the next match by a healthy margin. Other results are not in our hands, so we have to de what we can.

Player of the Match, Wanindu Hasaranga said:

We lost the last two games against the good sides. We have to play our best game to win it today and we did it. I saw last night's game in the same venue and thought Zampa bowled really well, and I wanted to bowl stumps-to-stumps. I went for some runs in the previous game but I know how to come back stronger. I have bowled on bigger boundaries before, so I know how to do it.