Date-stamped : 18 Oct95 - 10:31 3NAT-SHJ Match #6: Pakistan v Sri Lanka Lanka cruise into Singer trophy final, Beat Pakistan by 8 wickets Bandula Molligoda reporting from Sharjah. Dominating the game from the first ball to the last, the Sri Lan- kans completely outplayed Pakistan to enter the Singer champions trophy final where they will meet the West Indies, here on Fri- day. In a match they had to win to play in the final, Sri Lanka bun- dled out Pakistan for 143 and reached the target for the loss of two wickets. The Sri Lankans with exemplary leadership from Arjuna Ranatunga once again gave a fantastic team effort to reach this final which at one stage looked like eluding them. EASY VICTORY After the bowlers and fielders performed their tasks well, the batsmen put their heads down and cutting out all the frills and risks and helped Sri Lanka cruise to an easy victory and a richly deserved berth to contest the Windies in the final. After Jayasuriya tore into the attack in his usual fashion and left, Mahanama and Gurusinha steadied the innings and after Gurusinha went, Aravinda de Silva punched the stingless Pakistani attack and together with Mahanama took Sri Lanka to victory. IN THE RUNS Jayasuriya made 25, Mahanama 45 n.o., Gurusinha 31 and Aravinda de Silva 35 not out made the runs. The Pakistanis who had won two games and were sitting pretty at one stage, certain of figuring in the final, were non-plussed by the fact that they had to win this game today to compete for the big prize. The injury bug too seemed to have bitten them and for this vital game they were minus Aamir Sohail, Saeed Anwar and Inzamum Ul Haq. After Monday`s block-buster between Sri Lanka and West Indies in which each side scored over 300 and with the Windies sneaking through by the skin of their teeth, threw the tourney wide open with Windies on top on the run rate, with two wins, Pakistan although they had two wins were below Sri Lanka in the run rate. Sri Lanka had won one game. Their going over the 300 mark gave them the better run rate. INDIFFERENT The Pakistanis won the toss and decided to bat first and what one saw was some indifferent batting. The Lankans with their tails up after proving to the Windies, that they were second to none took the field a rejuvenated lot. New ball bowlers Wickremasinghe and Hathurusinghe did not try to bend their backs, rightly so because there was no pace in the wicket. They concentrated on line and length and got the ball to swerve that little bit which worried the batsmen. RESPONSIBLE Salim Elahi and Ramiz Raja have a very responsible task to per- form to see their side off to a good start and a total which will allow their bowlers a chance to attack the Sri Lankan bats- men. But the start they were hoping for did not materialise as Elahi went without scoring taken behind by Kaluwitharne off Hathurusinghe at 11. Ramiz Raja went 14 runs later snapped up similarly off Wickremasinghe for 9. TRIED HARD Basit Ali and Amer Hanif tried hard against a varied and tight attack handled admirably by Ranatunga. A mix-up saw the run out of Hanif and Pakistan were groggy at 52 for 3. The advent of skipper Ranatunga to the bowling crease brought more success for Sri Lanka when he got rid of the (21) threaten- ing Basit Ali with his first ball and a little later Iqbal (2). SEVENTH WICKET Mushtaq Ahmed and Saqlain Mushtaq added 52 for the seventh wicket. Once that stand was broken the innings crumbled and Pak- istan were all out for 143 in 48.3 overs. Source :: The Daily News (http://sri.lanka.net/lakehouse/) Contributed by The Management (help@cricinfo.com)