Last Updated on 2 years by Charbel Coorey
Cricket News: Twitter reactions after Sri Lanka win the 2022 Asia Cup | Reactions to Sri Lanka overcoming the odds and winning the 2022 Asia Cup
Sri Lanka lifted the Asia Cup after defeating Pakistan in the finale in the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday. Bhanuka Rajapaksa’s flamboyant 70-run knock helped the Lankans put up a challenging total of 170 runs in the first innings. He enabled the Dasun Shanaka-led side to recuperate from a position of bother as they were down at 57/5 at one point in time.
Wanindu Hasaranga and Dhananjaya de Silva played an able hand as they struck 36 and 28 respectively to take the team to a competitive score. Shanaka’s bowlers started off indifferently with Dilshan Madhushanka going wayward in the opening over. However, Pramod Madushan’s four-wicket haul helped them break the back of the Pakistani batting lineup.
Mohammed Rizwan and Iftikhar Ahmed stabilised their innings with scores of 55 and 32 respectively. However, their under-par strike rates of 112.24 and 103.34 left Pakistan with too much to chase down towards the back end of the innings. Hasaranga complemented his batting by taking three wickets with the ball whereas Chamika Karunaratne walked away with a couple of scalps to his name too.
Sri Lanka’s victory in the tournament makes for a very sweet story for a country currently embroiled in a dire economic crisis. They were originally supposed to host the current edition of the tournament but the turbulent conditions in the island nation compelled the authorities to move the competition to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Also, they overcame a common trend of chasing teams winning at Dubai.
Several celebrities and commoners took to Twitter to express their thoughts on Sunday’s finals. Cricblog takes a brief look at some of the top reactions observed in the social networking platform.
Sri Lanka had lost their opening game of the tournament against Afghanistan and that had led to many ruling them out of any contention to emerge victorious in the Asia Cup. However, the side displayed tremendous composure and character to win over multiple crunch moments thereafter.
Despite dealing with a host of injury concerns, they ensured that they rose up to the occasion to cross over the finishing line against all odds on more than one occasion. Several key stars like Dushmantha Chameera and Avishka Fernando are set to return to the setback from their respective layoffs. This victory has put the focus back on the Lankans and their performances will now be closely anticipated and monitored as they head into the T20 World Cup in Australia next month.
