Left-arm paceman Usman Shinwari on Monday destroyed Sri Lanka with a five-wicket burst to help Pakistan achieve a convincing nine-wicket win in the fifth and final one-day international for a 5-0 clean sweep of the series.
Shinwari’s 5-34 in seven overs reduced Sri Lanka to 103 all out in 26.2 overs in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, before openers Fakhar Zaman (48) and Imam-ul-Haq (45 not out) knocked off the paltry target in 20.2 overs.
It was Pakistan’s sixth whitewash in a five-match one-day series. They had blanked Zimbabwe (2002 and 2008), Bangladesh (2003 and 2008) and New Zealand (2003) in the past.
The result was never in doubt once Shinwari assisted by Hasan Ali (2-19) and Shadab Khan (2-24) had destroyed Sri Lanka, who previously had totals of 209, 187, 208 and 173 in the series.
The win is Pakistan’s ninth in a row since winning the ICC Champions Trophy in June, while Sri Lanka plummeted to their 12th consecutive defeat after also losing 5-0 to South Africa and India earlier this year.
Zaman hit seven boundaries in his 47-ball knock before he fell with just 20 needed.
Imam hit the winning boundary, finishing his 64-ball knock with four fours and a six, but it was Pakistan’s new find Shinwari who rocked Sri Lanka.
The 23-year-old finished with 5-34 as Sri Lanka, who won the toss and batted on an easy paced Sharjah Stadium pitch, never recovered from the early jolt of losing four wickets in the first three overs.
Shinwari said it was the best bowling of his career.
“Yes, you can say this is my best performance,” said Shinwari, who was declared man of the match. “Our bowling coach always tells us to attack from the first ball, and I did that and got wickets.”
Sri Lanka skipper Upul Tharanga was disappointed with the loss.
“For the last 15, 18 months we are losing because of poor batting,” said Tharanga, referring to Sri Lanka’s defeats which also included their first-ever loss to minnows Zimbabwe at home. “We had no answer to Pakistan’s bowling in the series, and today we lost four wickets inside three overs and it was tough to come back after that.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier