After losing the first match by six wickets, Sri Lanka got off to a good start in the second ODI. The top four batsmen have been able to score good runs so far. Batting at a run rate of 5.33, Sri Lanka has managed to score 192 runs in 36 overs so far. Their batting looks like they will be able to score big against Afghanistan today.
As it is a three match ODI series Sri Lanka must win this match because if Sri Lanka lose this match for any reason then they will lose the series against Afghanistan. 300 plus runs will be very difficult for Afghanistan to win. Now let's see if Sri Lanka manage to score 300 plus runs against Afghanistan's strong bowling line-up.
Sri Lanka lost their 1st ODI match against Afghanistan at their home ground. Afghanistan's batting performance was excellent due to which they won by more runs. But the way Sri Lanka is batting in today's match, they must have collected a big score. At the end of the game they must score 300 plus Sri Lankan batsmen are batting brilliantly due to which their run rate is increasing rapidly. In today's match, Sri Lanka are collecting runs and will definitely be a big score for them to win. And if you score 300+ runs it will be very difficult for Afghanistan and I think it will not be possible for Afghans to score so many runs. and Sri Lanka will try hard enough to win the match they must win this match otherwise they will lose this series. Sri Lanka's score today is certainly unlikely for Afghanistan to win many runs.
The match is getting tougher for Afghanistan as the overs go on. When Afghanistan came to bat with a target of 324 runs, Afghanistan lost Rahmanullah Gurbaz early on and suffered a big blow in batting. So far has managed to collect 110 runs by losing two wickets. Afghanistan are now batting at four plus current run rate but Afghanistan need to score 8+ runs per over to win. If this wicket pair can form a good partnership then the two teams will have almost equal chances of winning but if Sri Lanka can pick up some quick wickets then it will be much easier for Sri Lanka to win this match.
I would not say that Afghanistan suffered a major blow by losing the wicket of Rahmanullah Gurbaz. Rahmanullah Gurbaz is not in good form. Even his performance in IPL was very bad. However, it is much more difficult to win by batting at a target of 324 runs. It seems unlikely that Afghanistan will win to bat at such a big target. Yet they continued to try.
Afghanistan collected only 140 runs at the end of 30 overs. They can't collect an average of 5 runs per over. But Afghanistan lost only two wickets. They need 184 runs in 20 overs. They need to score more than 9 per over to win.
Although Rahmanullah Gurbaz was not in form, the game became very chaotic when one of the opening pair got out early in the game. Same thing happened with Afghanistan as they failed to bowl economically against Sri Lanka today then Rahmanullah Gurbaz got out early to bat which put a lot of batting pressure on Afghanistan and were bowled out for just 191 runs against Sri Lanka. That means Sri Lanka won this match by 132 runs. Sri Lanka returned to a 1-1 tie in the series by winning this match.
The third and final ODI match is a life-and-death battle for both the teams as the losers in the final match will be denied the series win.
After watching the performance of Afghanistan in the first match, I don't think the performance of Afghanistan's batsmen will be so bad in this match. They played very badly. Afghanistan was defeated by a huge margin of 132 runs. Despite the pitch being batting-friendly, Afghanistan did not play well. The bowling of the Sri Lankan bowlers was very controlled. Hasaranga and Dhananjaya de Silva in particular bowled well. Each managed to pick up three wickets.
As the bowling line-up is relatively better than Afghanistan's batting line-up, perhaps winning the toss and opting to bat was a very good decision for the Sri Lankan captain. Because if they could have scored a little more by batting first, Sri Lanka may have won the toss and decided to bat first, thinking that it would be possible to put a lot of pressure on the Afghan batsmen.
In the second ODI, Sri Lanka's batting line-up has to be praised as they put up a huge target of 323 runs against a bowling line-up as strong as Afghanistan, which is very challenging for any team.
Sri Lanka won the 2nd ODI match due to great batting as well as economic bowling and batting decision for Sri Lanka winning the toss was also excellent so overall Sri Lanka won a great match against Afghanistan.
