Afghanistan lose the match after great bowling performance against Sri Lanka - The 12th match of the World Cup 2015 was a match between Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. In this match Sri Lanka were the favorites against the minnows Afghans and were expected to win the game easily. It was a pool A match and both the teams had previously lost their matches in the tournament. In this match after winning the toss they decided to field first.
Batting first the openers provided the team a slow start scoring 34 runs for the first wicket in 8 overs. The very first ball of the 9th over saw Nawroz Mangal losing his wicket after scoring 10 runs. Javed Ahmadi too lost his wicket soon in the next over after scoring 24 runs. Sri Lanka seemed too meant business but then Asghar Stanikzai and Samiullah Shenwari together batted their team out of trouble with some sensible batting. Asghar scored 54 runs before losing his wicket while Samiullah scored 38 runs for the team. The middle order too chipped in with some runs and together the team was able to post a score of 232 runs before getting bowled out. Lasith Malinga and Angelo Mathews took 3 wickets each for the team. The last 4 wickets fell quickly for Afghans thus they lost the momentum.
Sri Lankans had a poor start to the chase as they lost both their openers early. Lahiru Thirimane and Tillakaratne Dilshan both lost their wickets without scoring a single run. Kumar Sangakkara too lost his wicket after scoring only 7 runs. The Afghans never stopped and took the 4th wicket in the 12th over in the form of Dimuth Karunaratne. The team was restricted at a score of 51/4 and was being dominated by the opposition. Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews came to the crease and they settled out in rotating the strike. They together took the team to 177 before Mathews lost his wicket. The very next bowl Lanka lost the wicket of Jayawardene too who scored 100 runs. This was a loss that brought Afghanistan back in the match but Thisara Perera scored 47 runs in 26 balls and took his team to victory in 49th over. Afghanistan lost the match but they proved their worth as a cricketing nation one again as Sri Lanka was troubled deeply by them.