Lankans avoid whitewash in Mendis's record match

Lankans avoid whitewash in Mendis's record match Sri Lanka defeated Pakistan by 8 wickets in the third and final T20I of the three-match series in Rawalpindi, avoiding a whitewash but losing the series 2-1. The hero of the match was Sri Lanka captain Kusal Mendis, who scored an unbeaten 87 off 48 balls to guide his team to a comfortable win and became Sri Lanka's highest run-scorer in T20 internationals. Batting first after losing the toss, Pakistan's innings was top-heavy. Opener Sahibzada Farhan scored 76 and Arafat Minhas remained unbeaten on 34, but no other batter reached double digits. This exposed Pakistan's middle and lower-order fragility on a surface that is generally batting-friendly with pace and bounce. Sri Lanka's disciplined bowling restricted Pakistan to a modest total. Chasing, Sri Lanka lost an early wicket, but the second-wicket partnership between Kusal Mendis and Sineth Jayawardena changed the course of the match. Jayawardena scored 38 off 26. Kusal Mendis and Kamindu Mendis then took the team home with 8 wickets in hand, Kamindu remaining unbeaten on 40. Kusal Mendis's innings was a career-best. His strike rate of approximately 181 is elite by T20 standards. Post-match figures put his T20I career tally at 2,791, surpassing Pathum Nissanka's 2,784 in 97 matches. The margin is only 7 runs, making the record fragile and likely to change hands again soon. Mendis's triple role as wicket-keeper, captain and top-order batter represents a significant workload risk. Farhan was Pakistan's player of the series with 238 runs in 3 matches, showing that the series story belonged to him while the match story belonged to Mendis. The series result confirms Pakistan won 2-1. The final match was a dead rubber. Pakistan's middle-order brittleness is a recurring structural issue, while Sri Lanka's over-dependence on Kusal Mendis is a single-point-of-failure risk. The record race between Nissanka and Mendis should be watched closely.