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On Friday, February 9, Sri Lanka registered a comfortable win by 42 runs against Afghanistan in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium. The opener Pathum Nissanka was the star of the show for Sri Lanka, scoring his first double hundred in ODIs to help them reach a big total of 381/3.
For the unversed, the captain of Afghanistan, Hashmatullah Shahidi won the toss on a placid pitch in Pallekele and decided to put the opposition in. His decision backfired in a big way with the Sri Lankan opening duo of Pathum Nissanka and Avishka Fernando putting together a massive stand of 182 runs within just 27 overs.
Avishka Fernando scored a run-a-ball 88 before getting dismissed off the bowling of Fareed Ahmad, trying to score a boundary through the point region, only to find Ibrahim Zadran, who took a sharp catch. Although the captain Kusal Mendis got stuck during his brief innings of 16 runs off 31 balls, the momentum stayed with the Sri Lankan innings, thanks to the batting blitz from Pathum Nissanka, who had gone past his hundred at this stage.
For the third wicket, Pathum Nissanka shared a partnership of 120 runs with Dasun Shanaka, and shortly afterwards, he completed his double hundred in the last few overs of the Sri Lankan innings.
The pursuit of a 382-run target started poorly for Afghanistan, losing five top order wickets for 55 in just nine overs, because of the Sri Lankan fast bowlers Pramod Madhushan and Dushmantha Chameera delivering impressive spells in the first powerplay. It led to a great partnership of 242 runs for the sixth wicket between Azmatullah Omarzai and the veteran Mohammad Nabi, with both the right-handed batters completing their hundreds.
Although their efforts to bring Afghanistan back into the contest were far from enough. Sri Lanka managed to restrict them to 339/6 total in their allotted overs to take the 1-0 lead in the three-match ODI series.
