Kusal Mendis is now Sri Lanka’s top T20I run-scorer, and his 87 not out beat Pakistan in Rawalpindi

Pakistan had the series won before Tuesday, so the third T20I in Rawalpindi was mostly about what Sri Lanka could take home. Kusal Mendis took quite a lot. His unbeaten 87 off 48 balls was the highest score of his 112-match T20I career and took Sri Lanka to 172 for 2 with 17 balls to spare. Somewhere along the way it also made him the country’s leading run-scorer in the format.

Kusal now has 2,791 T20I runs, seven more than Pathum Nissanka’s 2,784. Nissanka is not on this tour. Pakistan still take the series 2-1 after winning the first two games by four wickets and 82 runs.

Farhan again, and not much else

Sri Lanka chose to bowl, and for three overs it looked like the same story as Friday and Sunday. Then Eshan Malinga bowled the fourth. Fakhar Zaman went for 12 and Maaz Sadaqat for a duck, both caught trying to hit out, and the over was a double-wicket maiden. Pakistan were 34 for 2.

Sahibzada Farhan kept going. The captain made 76 off 47 balls with seven fours and three sixes, and he was only out to the penultimate ball of the innings, caught by Dasun Shanaka off Nuwan Thushara. Nobody else in the top seven passed 16. Pakistan, who made four changes with the series already won, were 102 for 6 after 13.4 overs.

Legspinner Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, in for Maheesh Theekshana, went for 23 in his four overs and took a wicket. Shanaka, bowling medium pace, took 3 for 21. Malinga and Thushara had two each.

What lifted Pakistan to 168 for 8 was a stand of 66 between Farhan and Arafat Minhas, which is now Pakistan’s highest for the seventh wicket in T20Is. Minhas finished on 34 not out from 20 balls. Farhan ends the series with 238 runs and the player-of-the-series award, but he did not pretend 168 was enough. “We batted well in the first two games but this 168-run total was not enough,” he said.

Kusal takes over after a slow start

The chase began badly. Lahiru Udara, who made 91 in the series opener, was given lbw to Mohammad Imran in the second over for 1. Sri Lanka did not review, and replays showed the impact was outside off stump.

Sineth Jayawardena, 21 and new to the side, set the pace instead. He hit five fours and two sixes in 38 off 26 balls and put on 59 with Kusal before Minhas had him caught in the eighth over. By then Kusal had settled. He reached 50 off 33 balls and kept accelerating, finishing with nine fours and four sixes at a strike rate of 181.

Kamindu Mendis gave him what he needed at the other end, 40 not out off 27 balls with four fours, and the pair added an unbroken 98 for the third wicket. Kusal, the player of the match, credited the bowlers first. “We didn’t bowl well in the first two games but today our bowling was disciplined and we kept them to a gettable total,” he said.

Sri Lanka needed this from him. Kusal went cheaply in the first two games and they struggled with the bat both times. With Nissanka missing, a lot rests on the captain, which is why a fast 38 from a 21-year-old opener mattered as much as it did.

Same ground, different format on Sunday

Neither side has long to dwell on it. England join them for an ODI tri-series, and the opening game is Pakistan against Sri Lanka at the same Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium on Sunday, 18 October, starting at 1:30pm IST.

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