||Desk Report||

Afghanistan confirmed Sri Lanka’s group-stage ouster from the Asia Cup as they defeated the islanders by 91 runs.

Both Afghanistan and Bangladesh have now confirmed their spots in the Super Four and will face each other in the last group match on September 20, to determine the champions of Group B.

Batting first in the familiar conditions in Abu Dhabi, Afghanistan’s top-order had enough runs on the board but their lower middle-order and the tailenders failed to capitalize on that and were all-out for 249 runs.

However, it was still a challenging score given Sri Lanka’s batting performance in the last match and their urge to stay alive in the tournament.

Rahmat Shah top-scored for the Afghans by adding 72 runs to the total. Mohammad Shehzad, Ihsanullah Janat, and Hashmatullah Shahidi also made important contributions while stitching good stands with the top-scorer and, for the most part, keeping the pressure off their team.

Thisara Perera crushed Afghanistan’s batting line-up in the slog overs by taking five of the last six wickets. He was also the one who tried to salvage some pride for the island nation when they were struggling with the bat and kept losing wickets at regular intervals.

Sri Lanka dealt an early blow as Kusal Mendis lost his wicket, but Upul Tharanga somewhat restored the innings with Dhananjaya de Silva by putting up a 54-run partnership. That, however, was not enough as no other batsmen showed much resilience to stand firm against the clinical Afghanistan bowling attack.

Perera, along with the skipper Angelo Mathews, tried to offer some respite in the middle, but could do nothing more than adding 20-odd runs each just to curtail their losing-margin.

Mujeeb Ur Rahman, Rashid Khan, and Mohammad Nabi bagged two wickets each and made sure that Sri Lanka once again capitulated to their spin proficiency.

Sri Lanka have claimed the wooden spoon in Group B after suffering back-to-back defeats to Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The two winning sides will be under no pressure when they face-off each other in Dubai on Thursday albeit the Tigers will have revenge in their minds due to their recent miserable limited-overs outings against Afghanistan.