Pakistan cricket team is out of T20 World Cup 2026. In its last match of Super-8, Pakistan needed to win against Sri Lanka by a big margin. But his wishes were dashed by host Sri Lanka, which had already been eliminated from the tournament. While Pakistan was out of the race for the semi-finals due to this setback at the hands of Sri Lanka, New Zealand got the benefit of this, becoming the second team from Group-2 to reach the semi-finals. Pakistan won the match by 5 runs but despite this it was eliminated.
In their last match of Super-8 round in Pallekele, Sri Lanka, Pakistan needed to win by a big margin of at least 65 runs. Batting first, Salman Aga’s team scored a tremendous score of 212 runs for 8 wickets in 20 overs. After this score, Pakistan needed to restrict Sri Lanka to 147 runs to make it to the semi-finals, so that its net run rate could be better than that of New Zealand, but the Sri Lankan batsmen dashed its hopes.
For Pakistan, Sahibzada Farhan once again did explosive batting and scored his second century in the tournament. This time Fakhar Zaman was brought in to open with him and together they made a strong partnership of 176 runs. But when it seemed that the Pakistani team would easily reach 240-250 runs, then Fakhar was out and after this the wicket fell. The team could score only 35 runs in the last 4 overs and lost 7 wickets during this period. Apart from these two batsmen, the next 8 batsmen could only add single digit scores.
After this score, the onus was on the bowlers to stop Sri Lanka before 147 runs and it started well, when Naseem Shah dismissed opener Pathum Nissanka in the second over itself. Then soon the team also lost the second wicket at the score of 33 runs. But after this the Sri Lankan batsmen counter-attacked and took control of the team. However, spinner Abrar Ahmed raised the hopes of his team by taking the wickets of Kamindu Mendis and Charit Asalanka.
Sri Lanka had lost 5 wickets for 101 runs in 12 overs, due to which it seemed that Pakistani bowlers would do wonders. But Sri Lankan captain Dasun Shanka and Pawan Ratnayake together destroyed the Pakistani bowlers. Both of them easily took the team beyond 147 runs and eliminated Pakistan from the tournament. While Ratnayake scored a half-century, Shanaka took the Sri Lankan team closer to victory. In the last over, Shanaka stunned Pakistan by hitting 3 consecutive sixes and 1 four on Shaheen Afridi. However, Shaheen somehow stopped him on the last two balls and gave Pakistan victory by 5 runs.