All-rounder Shahid Afridi scored a half-century before taking five wickets to steer Pakistan to a hard fought 26-run win in the fourth day-night match over Sri Lanka at Sharjah stadium.
Afridi helped Pakistan recover from a struggling 7 for 120 to 200 all out with a 65-ball 75 before he derailed Sri Lanka by taking 5 for 35 to dismiss it for 174 in 45.2 overs, giving his team an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-match series.
The victory leaves the fifth and final game in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday as inconsequential.
The sides will also play a Twenty20 international in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
Mahela Jayawardene and Kumar Sangakkara had set Sri Lanka on course for a comfortable win with a 102-run fourth wicket stand after Sri Lanka was struggling at 3 for 53 with Upul Tharanga (16) and Tillakaratne Dilshan (11) gone by the eighth over.
With 46 needed for victory Sangakkara, who hit six boundaries during his 103-ball knock, was bowled by Afridi for 58 and Saeed Ajmal accounted for Angelo Mathews (0) in the next over.
That triggered a collpase in which Sri Lanka lost its last seven wickets for 19 runs.
It included all of Afridi's wickets in a sensational display of leg spin bowling.
The 31-year-old thus became the only man in one-day cricket to hit a half-century and take five wickets in the same match on two occasions.
Jayawardene, who made 55, fell in the 44th over which left Sri Lanka with no chance to get the win it was seeking.
Earlier Afridi hit four boundaries and three sixes to lift his team from a precarious 7 for 120 to 200 in 49.3 overs.
Afridi added an invaluable 61 runs for the eighth wicket with tail-ender Saeed Ajmal, who finished with 20.
The swashbuckling Afridi hit spinner Seekkugge Prassana over extra cover for a six to reach his 31st half-century - his first in 15 innings - before hitting the same bowler for two boundaries and a six to notch up 19 in the 43rd over.
He finally fell, caught behind off paceman Thissara Perera, in the next over.
AFP
Tags: sport, cricket, united-arab-emirates, pakistan, sri-lanka First posted November 21, 2011 09:17:35
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