Dilshan steers Sri Lanka to win by 6 wickets
World T20, 15th Match, Super 10 Group 1: Afghanistan v Sri Lanka played at Eden Gardens, Kolkata March 17, 2016
Afghanistan 153/7 (20/20) Asghar Stanikzai 62 off 47 balls, 3 fours and 4 sixes, Samiullah Shenwari 31 off 14 balls 3 fours and 2 sixes, Noor Ali Zadran 20 off 23 balls and 3 fours, HMRKB Herath 24-2, NLTC Perera 33-3
Sri Lanka 155/4 (18.5/20 ov) Tilakaratne Dilshan 83 off 56 balls 8 fours and 3 sixes, Angelo Mathews 21 off 10 overs 3 fours and 1 six Mohammad Nabi 25-1, Rashid Khan 27-1
Sri Lanka won by 6 wickets (with 7 balls remaining)
Afghanistan recovered brilliantly from a poor start, scoring 106 runs in their last ten overs to set a challenging target of 154. They bowled well to claw back into the match after Dilshan and Dinesh Chandimal had given Sri Lanka a bright start 41 for 0 in five overs. Afghanistan’s fielding proved to be lacking with three errors in the deep which gave Sri Lankan batting enough chances. Karim Sadiq failed to stop a ball at midwicket in the 14th over, and in 16th Dawlat Zadran also failed to stop at deep backward square leg, then substitute fielder Gulbadin Naib dived to his left at third man and got his hand to ball only to end up pushing it past the rope. Sri Lanka managed to get 12 runs from those 3 balls instead of 3 runs.
A 56-ball 83 from Tilakarante Dilshan steered Sri Lanka to a six-wicket win in their opening match of the World T20.