Victory was made possible by aggressive batting, as promised by captain Angelo Mathews. The personnel who did that were Kusal Mendis (89) and Danushka Gunathilaka (76), who wasn’t even in the squad until an injury to Chamara Kapugedera on the eve of the game.

But it all changed quickly when when Gunathilaka pulled Umesh into the stands at the beginning of the eighth, signalling a shift in fortunes. Gunathilaka took charge with some glorious drives, particularly down the ground, while Mendis too started confidently, shifting the pressure on to India gradually.

But a good beginning is not even a job half done, as Sri Lanka found out the hard way against South Africa. The middle-overs batting was the most crucial phase of the chase, and how Sri Lanka handled Ravindra Jadeja was in particular important, given that it had crumbled against ’s leg-spin.

Mendis took that task upon himself and dismantled the left-arm spinner’s threat with smart batting. With only four fielders allowed inside the ring, Mendis targeted the mid-wicket boundary to perfection, getting past fifty with one such massive swipe into the crowd.

Jadeja conceded 36 from four overs, the partnership crossed 150, and India’s shoulders began to drop. It didn’t help that Rohit Sharma could not hold on to a very tough chance in the deep when Gunathilaka was on 70.

India’s desperation was evident when Kedhar Jadhav and Virat Kohli came on to bowl, but the breakthroughs came via run outs.

Pakistan’s crushing 124-run loss to title-holders India in their tournament opener at Edgbaston on Sunday was labelled the “Mother of all mismatches” by the Indian Express newspaper.

Yet, worryingly for Pakistan coach Arthur, there is the potential for an even more lopsided match when they return to Edgbaston on Wednesday — and that’s not simply because South Africa are top of the International Cricket Council (ICC) one-day international rankings while Pakistan are eighth.

Pakistan were outplayed in every department by an India side who were nowhere near their best.

Having conceded 319 for three as India’s top order ran riot, Pakistan were dismissed for just 164, having never once threatened a rain-adjusted target of 289 in 41 overs.

It led former Pakistan captain Shahid Afridi, to slam the current team’s “clueless” batting and “abysmal fielding”.

Now, in the space of just a few days, Pakistan must somehow raise their game to beat a South Africa side who defeated Sri Lanka by 96 runs at the Oval on Saturday in their opening Group B fixture if they are to have any chance of reaching the semi-finals.

Arthur suggested too many Pakistan players had suffered ‘stage fright’ against India in front of a capacity crowd of more than 24,000.

“My issue is fear,” he said. “My issue is getting out there and really looking to take the game on.

“The worrying thing for me…is we just do the basics wrong.

“We drop simple catches. We don’t run well enough between wickets. We don’t understand when to bowl our variations.” But Arthur, a former coach of both South Africa and Australia, was adamant all was far from lost.

“We’ll be thinking firmly of coming back and beating South Africa,” he said. “Because that’s what I think our players can do. “So, we’re going to be up for the fight.” Pakistan will be without Wahab Riaz after he was ruled out of the rest of the tournament on Monday with an ankle injury sustained when falling in his delivery stride against India. But given by that stage the left-arm paceman had conceded a whopping 87 runs in 8.4 wicketless overs, his absence may not be that big a blow.

Pakistan have applied to the ICC for an injury replacement, but they appear to have a stand-in already with them in Junaid Khan, who took four for 73 in a warm-up match against Bangladesh.

Mohammad Amir provided rare moments of respite amid the India run-spree with a return of none for 32 in 8.1 overs. Yet, concerningly, the left-arm fast bowler was unable to complete his full allocation of overs because of cramp, despite being repeatedly on and off the field on what was a cool day. If Arthur has some ‘inside knowledge’ on South Africa, the Proteas’ have a ‘spy’ of their own in Pakistan-born Imran Tahir. The leg-spinner, who changed allegiance after falling in love with his South African wife, played a key role in Saturday’s match.

Despite a fine hundred by South Africa’s Hashim Amla, Sri Lanka were well-placed to chase down a target of 300 at 116 for two. But man-of-the-match Tahir’s return of four for 27 turned the tide.

“It was close to ten out of ten,” said South Africa captain AB de Villiers of Tahir’s performance, which also included a run-out. “He takes wickets and he is also economical most of the time,” added the skipper, who was equally delighted by Amla’s “amazing innings”.

The cliche of Pakistani ‘unpredictability’ may be wearing thin, at least in ODI cricket.

South Africa, however, have a nasty habit of not playing to their potential in ICC tournaments and de Villiers promised they were not about to “get ahead of ourselves”

South Africa thrashed Sri Lanka by eight wickets in their final game at the World Twenty20.

Sri Lanka reached 45-0 but then lost all 10 wickets for 75 runs to slip to 120 all out, with Kyle Abbott, Aaron Phangiso and Farhaan Behardien each taking two wickets.

Hashim Amla made an unbeaten 56 in a comfortable chase that an AB de Villiers six completed with 14 deliveries to spare.

Both teams had already been eliminated.
Group 1 table
Sorry Sri Lanka

This was a horrible display from Sri Lanka, who arrived as the defending champions but leave having beaten only Afghanistan.

Without injured captain Angelo Mathews, their middle-order fell apart after openers Tillakaratne Dilshan and Dinesh Chandimal raced to 45 in 28 balls.

Left-arm spinner Phangiso was hit for 10 runs from the first two balls he bowled but, later in the same over, bowled both Chandimal and Lahiru Thirimanne in successive deliveries.

As South Africa, in particular the excellent leg-spin of Imran Tahir, took pace off the ball, Sri Lanka perished to poor shots and sloppy running.
Jeffrey Vandersay
Defending champions Sri Lanka won only once at the 2016 World Twenty20
Late pride for the Proteas

South Africa finish third in Group 1, behind West Indies and England, who play India and New Zealand respectively in the semi-finals.

They may feel unfortunate not to be in the last four – their two defeats both came in the last over of the match – but this was the most comfortable of victories.

Amla was never troubled, occasionally taking boundaries behind square on the off side or wristily whipping through the leg, including one six.

He lost Quinton de Kock to a direct hit from Dilshan and Faf du Plessis to an erroneous lbw, the latter allowing De Villiers to arrive and belt the winning runs off a Suranga Lakmal full toss.
What they said

South Africa captain Faf du Plessis: “Unfortunately we played our best game tonight when we were already out. We should have won the first game when we scored 230 and not to get over the line against West Indies was disappointing. I’ve picked up a few grey hairs in this tournament but hopefully I’ll still be here in four years’ time.”

Sri Lanka captain Dinesh Chandimal: “You can’t say every time you are a rebuilding team. Someone has to put their hand up and perform well. Batting has let us down throughout the tournament. We didn’t execute in the middle and that’s why we lost.”