Moody gifted with a win
Afp, Abu Dhabi
World Cup finalists Sri Lanka gave their Australian coach Tom Moody an ideal goodbye here on Tuesday as they beat Pakistan by 115 runs in their third and final one day international. Sri Lanka -- whom Moody has been coach of since 2005 -- made 296-9 off 50 overs while Pakistan could only muster 181 all out off 42.5 overs. Pakistan -- who crashed out of the World Cup in the first stage and whose coach Bob Woolmer died mysteriously shortly after they were sensationally beaten by minnows Ireland -- still won the series 2-1. Sri Lanka's innings was based round a 124 run partnership between skipper Mahela Jayawardene -- who made 83 -- and Chamara Silva (64) until Jayawardene was bowled by Mohammed Hafeez with the score on 225. Pakistan -- who arrived for the series without a new coach and with a new captain in Shoaib Malik -- had the upper hand before that thanks to Iftikhar Anjum skittling out the top three Sri Lankan batsmen -- including veteran opener Sanath Jayasuriya for 19 -- to leave them in trouble at 101-3. The Pakistanis, however, never got any momentum going in their innings with just Shoaib producing any resistance of note as he stroked a superb unbeaten captain's innings of 79. However, he was always facing an uphill battle once the Pakistanis were reduced to 70-6, not helping their cause with two of those being run outs.
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