Agha hits century on return, Shaheen grabs three wickets as Pakistan down SL in opener

Salman Agha marked his return to international cricket with a century as Pakistan beat Sri Lanka by 37 runs in the one-day tri-series opener in Rawalpindi on Sunday.

The 32-year-old scored a 90-ball 107 with a six and 10 fours to anchor Pakistan’s 305 in 49.5 overs, before skipper Shaheen Shah Afridi grabbed 3-55 to keep Sri Lanka down to 268 in 48.1 overs.

Pavan Rathnayake (79) and Janith Liyanage’s 60 kept the visitors in the chase during a fighting 119-run fifth wicket stand.

Opener Kamindu Mendis also contributed with a fluent 44.

Rathnayake cracked two sixes and six boundaries while Liyanage’s knock had five boundaries, but once both fell only Dasun Shanaka (28) really troubled the scorers as Sri Lanka lost their last five wickets for just 15 runs.

Naseem Shah, Haris Rauf and Faheem Ashraf chipped in with two wickets apiece for Pakistan.

Earlier, Agha, coming out of a miserable last three months, propelled Pakistan to victory.

He was sent home ahead of the third Test in England in August after captaining the team in the first match.

“These times come on you and I thought that I will go back in domestic cricket and make things right with my performances,” said Agha, who was also sacked as Pakistan’s T20I captain.

“I was looking to hit the ball in the pockets to rotate the strike so that we can take our team beyond 300 so we batted aggressively in the end.”

Agha hit two consecutive boundaries off pacer Asitha Fernando to complete his fourth one-day international hundred, finally falling to the same bowler in the 47th over.

He added 97 runs for the fifth wicket with Hasan Nawaz (37) and another 64 for the sixth with Arafat Minhas, who made 18.

Left-arm pacer Dilshan Madushanka had jolted Pakistan with the wickets of openers Saim Ayub (seven) and Fakhar Zaman (16).

Debutant Saad Baig scored a brisk 40-ball 39 with two sixes and three fours.

Along with Babar Azam (45), the pair lifted the score during their 74-run stand.

Babar achieved a significant milestone as he became Pakistan’s fifth cricketer to complete 16000 runs.

He took just 399 innings to complete 16000 runs across the three formats, being third fastest for the Men in Green behind Mohammad Yousuf (388 innings) and Javed Miandad (398 innings).

He is just the fifth Pakistan player to get to the mark. Apart from him, Miandad and Yousuf, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Younis Khan have also made more than 16000 runs across the three formats.

Fast bowler Eshan Malinga dismissed both in successive overs to halt Pakistan’s progress before Agha came into his own.

Malinga was the pick of the Sri Lanka bowlers with a career-best 4-46, while Fernando took 3-59.

The hosts now play England in the second match on Tuesday — also in Rawalpindi — in the series seen as a build-up for next year’s 50-over World Cup in southern Africa.

Pakistan, champions in 1992, have not qualified for the ODI World Cup semi-finals since 2011 and finished fifth at the last World Cup in India three years ago.

England won the title at home in 2019 but fared miserably in 2023, coming seventh.

England enter the series following three straight victories in the last three bilateral ODI series, including home and away victories over Sri Lanka and a 2-1 victory over India at home.

“It’s been quite a slick process for us in the last few months,” captain Harry Brook.

“Pakistan are going to present us challenges that we probably haven’t quite faced yet as an ODI side and we’re really looking forward to that opportunity of playing against Pakistan and Sri Lanka in subcontinental conditions.”

Fast bowler Archer has been rested after a busy home summer while Buttler was ruled out because of a hamstring injury sustained during England’s 16-run loss in the second ODI against Sri Lanka at Headingley last month.

Buttler’s absence will give an opportunity to Jordan Cox as a wicketkeeper-batter and give white-ball coach Brendon McCullum a chance to test the depth of the side ahead of World Cup.

Sonny Baker has been drafted in to fill in the shoes of Archer and observers will be watching for his reverse-swing skills and yorkers - especially in the death overs.

Agencies