Pakistan loses first match of Asia Cup

DUMBULLA: Pakistan lost to Sri Lanka by 18 runs in the opening match of the Asia Cup on Tuesday at Dumbulla.

Captain Shahid Afridi played an impressive innings scoring 109 runs, but the team was not able to overcome the score set by the host team.

Earlier Pakistan restricted Sri Lanka to 242/9 in 50 overs.

Afridi was bowled out by Muttiah Muralitharan while Umar Akmal the second highest scorer for Paksitan made 30 runs when he was run out by Dilshan.

Shoaib Akhtar made a strong comeback as he gave away 41 runs for three wickets followed by Muhammad Aamer managing to take two wickets for 57 runs.

Abdul Razzaq while taking only one wicket successfully managed to give away only 3.37 runs per over in his eight over spell.

For Sri Lanka, Mathews and Jayawardene remained the top scorers with 55 and 54 runs respectively.