Kusal Mendis struck an unbeaten 87 off 48 balls as Sri Lanka beat Pakistan by eight wickets in the third and final T20I in Rawalpindi, avoiding a whitewash after the hosts had already sealed the series in the first two games. Dasun Shanaka’s 3 for 21 helped restrict Pakistan to 168 for 8 before Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis (40 not out) finished the chase with 17 balls to spare. Pakistan captain Sahibzada Farhan made 76, his third straight fifty, and was named Player of the Series as Pakistan sealed it 2-1.
Sent in to bat, Pakistan raced to 34 without loss in three overs before Eshan Malinga turned the innings with a double-wicket maiden. He had Fakhar Zaman caught at cover off his first ball and then removed Maaz Sadaqat for a duck three balls later. Farhan kept the scoreboard moving but Vijayakanth Viyaskanth, playing his first game of the series, and Shanaka worked in tandem to take control of the middle overs.
Kamindu took a sharp catch at long-on to send back Hasan Nawaz off Viyaskanth’s googly, and Shanaka’s slower balls then accounted for Khawaja Nafay, Mohammad Imran Randhawa and Abdul Samad in back to back overs as Pakistan slipped to 102 for 6 in the 14th over.
Arafat Minhas then rescued the innings with an unbeaten 34 off 20 balls at No. 8. He and Farhan added 66 off 37 balls and took 48 runs off the 17th, 18th and 19th overs. Nuwan Thushara pulled things back in the final over, conceding just five runs and dismissing Farhan, caught by Shanaka at cover, and Razaullah with a yorker.
Sineth Jayawardena got Sri Lanka’s chase going with 14 off the first over. Randhawa trapped Lahiru Udara lbw in the second but Jayawardena (38 off 26) and Kusal added 59 off 41 balls before Minhas had Jayawardena caught at long-on in the eighth over. With dew making batting easier, Kusal reached his fifty off 33 balls and was dropped on 64 by Sufyan Moqim off his own bowling. He and Kamindu shared an unbeaten 98 off 55 balls, taking 18 off a Razaullah over and 15 off Salman Mirza’s to help Sri Lanka towards an easy victory after two heavy defeats.
Brief scores: Pakistan 168/8 in 20 overs (Sahibzada Farhan 76, Arafat Minhas 34*; Dasun Shanaka 3-21) lost to Sri Lanka 172/2 in 17.1 overs (Kusal Mendis 87*, Kamindu Mendis 40*, Arafat Minhas 1-26, Mohammad Imran Randhawa 1-31) by 8 wickets