Babar's century drought ends and Pakistan wins the Sri Lanka ODI series

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Babar Azam's archetypal planetary period successful much than 2 years anchored Pakistan's comfy pursuit of 289 against scratchy Sri Lanka successful their series-clinching one-day planetary connected Friday.

Pakistan won by 8 wickets, cruising to 289-2 successful 48.2 overs connected Babar's fluent unbeaten 102 disconnected 119 balls. They person an unbeatable 2-0 pb successful the three-match series, which ends connected Sunday.

Sri Lanka was restricted to 288-8 connected a cleanable batting transportation aft six of the apical 7 batters couldn’t person bully starts.

The bid was successful uncertainty aft Sri Lanka players wanted to permission the state erstwhile a termination bomber killed 12 people extracurricular a tribunal successful Islamabad connected Tuesday, hours earlier the archetypal ODI successful adjacent Rawalpindi.

However, Sri Lanka Cricket directed the squad to decorativeness the bid aft it was reassured astir information by the Pakistan Cricket Board.

Babar came into Friday’s crippled without an planetary period successful 83 innings crossed the formats, much than 800 days since a 100 against Nepal successful the Asia Cup astatine Multan successful August 2023.

“I had been waiting for this (century) similar the fans,” Babar said. “I kept the content up. I got starts successful a fewer games against South Africa excessively (in the past ODI series) but you lone get what you wished erstwhile God wants you to. I was trying to walk arsenic overmuch clip astatine the crease.”

He dug successful good against the rotation menace of Wanindu Hasaranga, who finished wicketless with 0-35, but the Sri Lanka seamers couldn’t power the bedewed shot due to the fact that of dew and consistently missed their lengths.

Babar raised his half-century disconnected 68 balls with lone 3 fours and grew successful confidence. He pulled Pramod Madushan to midwicket for a azygous to implicit his much-awaited period disconnected 115 balls with 8 fours.

The assemblage erupted and chanted “Babar, Babar” to observe the extremity of the drought by Pakistan's premier batter. His 20th ODI period equaled Saeed Anwar’s Pakistan ODI record.

The opening brace of Fakhar Zaman (78) and Saim Ayub (33) provided a rollicking commencement of 77 disconnected 58 balls.

Zaman was dropped doubly successful the 20s and a 3rd clip astatine good limb conscionable earlier his dismissal, a superb drawback by Janith Liyanage astatine abbreviated midwicket. But by past he'd enactment connected 100 runs with Babar to instrumentality the crippled distant from Sri Lanka.

Mohammad Rizwan, unbeaten connected 51 disconnected 54 balls, and Babar shared a 112-run basal to the win.

“It’s a implicit batting show from us,” stand-in skipper Salman Ali Agha said. “We had 3 precise bully partnerships. It was a 320-330 wicket for america truthful I was precise blessed to support them to 290.”

Kamil Mishara (27) successful his 2nd ODI and Pathum Nissanka (24) made a decent commencement of 51 runs for Sri Lanka wrong the batting powerplay earlier Nissanka was tally retired against the tally of play erstwhile helium tried to spell for a 3rd run.

Leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed, who recovered from illness, pegged backmost the visitors with 3 wickets. He dismissed Mishara, Kusal Mendis and skipper Charith Asalanka and dropped the visitors to 98-4 successful the 22nd over.

Sadeera Samarawickrama (42) and Liyanage (54) revived the innings with a 61-run basal until Haris Rauf knocked backmost the disconnected stump of Samarawickrama successful his instrumentality spell.

Rauf followed his four-wicket haul successful the archetypal ODI with 3-66 including the captious wicket of Kamindu Mendis (44) successful the decease overs.

Hasaranga's precocious flurry of 37 disconnected 26 balls helped to acceptable a full that was thought to beryllium astir 30-40 runs abbreviated of par.

Asalanka rued a ton of missed opportunities, including bully starts by batters and dropped catches successful the field.

“A batch of wides and extras successful the archetypal 2 overs,” helium said. “It’s truly hard to travel backmost connected these wickets. After 10-15 overs dew came and things got harder.”

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