All-rounder Afridi, BOOM BOOM Fire Pak to Series-leveling win in 2nd T20 :)

<><>Pakistan 122 for 6 (Afridi 52*, Kulasekara 2-13) beat 
Sri Lanka 99 (Afridi 2-17) by 23 runs<><><><>
SCORE CARD

Shahid Afridi rescued a limp Pakistan innings from despair and built his team a middling total with an aggressive half-century that was pragmatically constructed. He then proceeded to tenaciously defend his hard work, and by the time he was through with his spell, Sri Lanka had severely depleted resources to complete an arduous task. The upshot was that Pakistan left Hambantota with the series level at 1-1, and Afridi with his seventh Player-of-the-Match award, a Twenty20 record.

The second T20 played out in a manner remarkably similar to the first, two days ago, only with roles reversed. On Friday, Sri Lanka had chosen to bat and then collapsed, before a hard-hitting cameo lifted them. Today, it was Pakistan. On Friday, in pursuit of a modest total, Pakistan had been dismissed for less than 100. Today, it was

Sri Lanka.

Pakistan went onto draw the T20 Series by winning the second and final match at Hambantota by 23 runs. Once again the pitch made batting very difficult and the team chasing down a low target went onto lose it by some margin. This time it was the turn of Sri Lanka as they failed to chase down a moderate target of 123.

Yasir Arafat brought the visitors back in the game by taking two early wickets. Shahid Afridi then turned the game in Pak’s favour by cleaning up Tillakaratne Dilshan and Chamara Kapugedera as SL slipped to 62 for 4 by the 12th over.

Pakistan relentlessly kept on taking the wickets with Mohammad Sami joining into the act with some hostile fast bowling. Saeed Ajmal, Sohail Tanvir strangled the scoring in their spells and that left Sri Lanka lagging behind in the run chase. Towards the end, only Skipper Angelo Mathews was left to do some magic on his own which he failed as Sri Lanka were bundled out for 99 in 19.2 overs.

The top scorer for Sri Lanka was Kapugedera and all he could get was just 19! For Pakistan, Yasir Arafat and Mohammad Sami took three wickets each. Shahid Afridi, who scored an unbeaten 52 from 33 balls and came up with 2 for 17 in 4 overs got the Man of the Match award.