Sri Lanka get another crack at high-flying Afghanistan

Having confirmed their Super 4 berths, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan will be looking to start afresh as they look to strengthen their bid to finish among the top two for a place in the Asia Cup final, according to cricbuzz.com.

While Afghanistan qualified for the Super four by registering two successive victories, Sri Lanka had to overcome Bangladesh in a tense encounter to progress further. They'll be hoping to take confidence from an improved batting performance to counter the spin challenge that Afghanistan bring to the table.

On a batting friendly wicket in Dubai, Kusal Mendis's 37-ball 60, Dasun Shanaka's 33-ball 45 and cameos from the lower order helped Sri Lanka prevail. But they still have issues with their batting which they'll be hoping to address quickly. Looking at the stats since 2021, Sri Lanka have the second lowest scoring rate (6.64) in the powerplay and they have also lost the second most number of wickets (59) in the first six overs. Sri Lanka have also gone in with 11 different opening combinations and nine openers in the said period, with only Mendis having a strike rate in excess of 125. While Mendis and Shanaka have made key contributions, Sri Lanka will be hoping for the rest of their batters to step up.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, have been well served by their top order and Najibullah Zadran has led the way with consistency and dynamic batting at 4/5. Since 2020, Najibullah has scored 614 runs at an average of 40.93 and a strike rate of 151.6, with five fifties. With Ibrahim Zadran assigned the anchor's role and the rest having the liberty to play a positive brand of cricket, Afghanistan have a settled batting line-up to take on Sri Lanka's relatively inexperienced pace attack. Afghanistan will also take confidence from their opening night win over the same opposition. They absolutely hammered Sri Lanka that night bowling them out for just 105 and then proceeding to chase that target down inside 11 overs. Sri Lanka's campaign was hanging in the balance post that defeat, from which they managed to recover. But now that they get another crack at Afghanistan, will they redeem themselves?