Pakistan Win Tri-Series Final as Fakhar's 127 Seals Title

Pakistan are tri-series champions. In a final that swung wildly from one side to the other, the hosts chased down a target of 326 to beat Sri Lanka by three wickets at Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore on Saturday, October 31, 2026, finishing on 331 for 7 with nine balls to spare. Captain Shaheen Shah Afridi sealed the trophy in the grandest possible style, launching Dilshan Madushanka over the boundary for six.

It was a chase that had everything: an early collapse, a masterful century, a long boundary drought, a late explosion from the lower order, and a heart-stopping finish in which Pakistan lost two wickets with victory just two runs away. In the end, the trophy stayed in Lahore, and a tournament that began in Rawalpindi on October 18 ended with a home celebration.

The result also avenged, in the sweetest way, Pakistan's heaviest night of the series. Just four days earlier, on this same ground, Sri Lanka had bowled Pakistan out for 110 and sealed their own place in the final. On Saturday, Pakistan answered with the joint-highest successful run chase in the history of ODI finals.

Final scorecard: Pakistan 331/7 beat Sri Lanka 325/8

Team	Score	Overs
Sri Lanka	325/8	50
Pakistan	331/7	48.3

Result: Pakistan won by 3 wickets (9 balls remaining), Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore, October 31, 2026.

Top scorers: Sri Lanka — Kamindu Mendis 131 off 128 balls, Pavan Rathnayake 77 off 65. Pakistan — Fakhar Zaman 127 off 99, Saad Baig 74 off 75, Arafat Minhas 61 off 31, Hasan Nawaz 37 not out off 45.

Best bowling: Sri Lanka — Dilshan Madushanka 3 for 63, Asitha Fernando 2 for 72. Pakistan — Salman Ali Agha 2 for 44, Shaheen Shah Afridi 2 for 50, Haris Rauf 2 for 60, Naseem Shah 2 for 80.

Player of the match: Fakhar Zaman, for his 12th ODI century.

Kamindu's maiden century sets Pakistan 326

Pakistan won the toss and, as they had done so often in this series, chose to bowl first. For long stretches of the Sri Lanka innings, that decision looked like it might backfire. Sri Lanka scorched their way to 255 for 2 at the end of 41 overs and, at that stage, a total close to 350 looked well within reach.

The innings was built around Kamindu Mendis, who scored his maiden ODI century. Kamindu was unhurried early on — he had just 18 off 29 balls at the end of the ninth over — but he accelerated through the middle overs, first in the company of Avishka Fernando, with whom he added 87 off 104 deliveries, and then alongside Pavan Rathnayake, who joined him in the 22nd over for a 146-run third-wicket stand off 119 balls.

Rathnayake was again brilliant, hitting 77 from 65 balls with his powerful sweep and pull on full display. It was his fourth big innings in a row in the series, and he finished as the tournament's top run-scorer by some distance, with 427 runs at a strike rate of 122.70.

Kamindu's hundred was a complete exhibition. He reached triple figures for the first time in white-ball cricket, unleashing virtually the full array of his strokes, including an excellent reverse sweep off Arafat Minhas as early as the seventh over. He eventually made 131 off 128 balls, with 12 fours and two sixes, before Shaheen Shah Afridi trapped him leg before wicket as he missed a sweep.

Pakistan's quicks turn the death overs

Kamindu's dismissal set in motion the passage of play that arguably decided the final. Sri Lanka's middle order withered after he fell, losing five wickets for 28 runs, and the tailenders were left to play out the last 11 balls. Dasun Shanaka was caught at long-on off Afridi in the 44th over, and in the next over Rathnayake was caught on the straight boundary off Haris Rauf.

Naseem Shah and Rauf made further strikes at the death, and Pakistan's quicks collectively shone in the final nine overs. Afridi finished with 2 for 50 from his ten overs, Agha took 2 for 44, Rauf 2 for 60 and Naseem 2 for 80. From 255 for 2, Sri Lanka stumbled to 325 for 8 — a competitive total, certainly, but at least 25 runs short of where they had seemed headed.

There was one more factor working in Pakistan's favour once the chase began: dew. Significant dew settled on the Lahore outfield late in the evening, hampering Sri Lanka's bowling and fielding, and as Pakistan got closer to the target, Sri Lanka's ground fielding errors seemed to compound.

14 for 2: the final starts with a nightmare

For three overs, the final looked like it might become a procession in the other direction. Madushanka struck twice with the new ball, having both Maaz Sadaqat and Babar Azam caught at slip, and Pakistan were suddenly 14 for 2 in the fourth over. The Lahore crowd, which had come expecting a celebration, fell silent.

What followed was one of the great recovery partnerships in a Pakistan final. Fakhar Zaman and Saad Baig added 149 runs for the third wicket, dragging Pakistan out of trouble and into control. Baig, strong square of the wicket on a pitch offering true bounce, made 74 off 75 deliveries. Fakhar, meanwhile, paced his innings beautifully: he took 52 balls to reach fifty, then climbed into a higher gear, reaching his 12th ODI hundred off his 84th ball and striking 75 off his last 40 deliveries.

Fakhar lived dangerously, and Sri Lanka will rue the chances that got away. He was dropped on 69 in the 25th over by Maheesh Theekshana, a tough chance, and Theekshana got another hand to a potential catch in the 32nd over near the boundary. In between, Fakhar struck brutal boundaries, productive on the leg side as usual — 72 of his 127 runs came in that direction, with the arc between fine leg and midwicket proving particularly fruitful. He swept beautifully and pulled with conviction, and he dominated the spinners and less-accomplished seamers with special ferocity.

His first boundary, tellingly, was a six that touched the fingertips of Madushanka at deep third, who could not quite haul it in. That set the tone for an innings of 127 off 99 balls, with 11 fours and six sixes, before Madushanka finally ended it in the 34th over, bowling him. Madushanka, having dismissed each of Pakistan's top three, finished with 3 for 63 from 9.3 overs — the best figures in the game.

The quiet middle, then the Minhas explosion

When Fakhar fell, Pakistan still needed 106 runs, but the pace at which he had scored meant the required rate was under 6.5 runs an over for the last 16.5 overs. Salman Ali Agha departed two overs later for 17 off 25 balls, leaving Pakistan at 230 for 5 after 36.5 overs, and then came a strange passage: Pakistan endured a nine-over stretch between overs 33 and 42 in which they did not find the boundary at all. Yet with batting still to come, they were still ahead in the match.

Then Arafat Minhas changed the game. The No. 7, who had already made his mark in this series with bat and ball, was laudably pragmatic at first: he bided his time and came to grips with conditions in the first 14 balls he faced, hitting no boundaries. After the 42nd over, and after the heavy dew had set in, he exploded, reaping 48 runs off the last 17 balls he faced, with four sixes and three fours in all. The most spectacular of his sixes was a check-driven hit over long-on off Madushanka in the 47th over.

Minhas and Hasan Nawaz clobbered 94 off 65 deliveries for the sixth wicket to essentially seal victory — a mirror image of the way Sri Lanka's lower order had withered. At the start of the 48th over, Pakistan needed 18 off 18 balls. Minhas then struck two sixes and a four off Asitha Fernando to get Pakistan to within two runs of victory before top-edging a slower ball, which Asitha himself chased down.

What happened next will be remembered almost as vividly as the winning hit. Faheem Ashraf was dismissed for a first-ball duck in the same over, and suddenly Pakistan were 324 for 7, needing two runs with three wickets in hand and the finish line in sight but the nerves jangling. There was, however, little real doubt left. Captain Shaheen Shah Afridi walked in and, on the third delivery of the penultimate over, smashed Madushanka for a six over square leg to finish the job.

A record chase, and what it means

The successful pursuit of 326 is the joint-highest run chase in an ODI final, level with India's famous chase against England in the 2002 NatWest Series final at Lord's. And because Afridi finished the game with a six, Pakistan's final total of 331 for 7 also stands as the highest winning score in an ODI tournament final involving three or more teams.

For Pakistan, the trophy caps a tournament of remarkable swings. They opened with a 37-run win over Sri Lanka, then beat England by 87 runs in Rawalpindi, then produced a one-wicket miracle against England in Lahore thanks to Shadab Khan's unbeaten 113. The 110 all-out collapse against Sri Lanka on October 27 was the low point — and the reason this final felt like a genuine test of character rather than a coronation.

For Sri Lanka, there is real heartbreak but also real progress. Kamindu's century, Rathnayake's tournament-topping 427 runs and a final appearance built on that eight-wicket win in Lahore mark them out as a side on the rise. They simply ran into a Pakistan team that, on the night, had the deeper batting and the better death bowling.

England, the third team in the tri-series, were eliminated in the group stage despite ending with a 55-run win over Sri Lanka in Lahore on October 29, in which Ben Duckett scored 167. That result set up this final — and Pakistan made sure they did not waste the second chance their group-stage form had earned them.

What comes next for Pakistan

The trophy arrives at a useful moment. With the 2027 Cricket World Cup cycle building, Pakistan now have a home title, a settled captain in Afridi, a match-winner in Fakhar who produces his best on final day, and a new generation — Baig, Minhas, Hasan Nawaz — that has now felt the pressure of a big chase and come through it.

The questions have not disappeared. The top order wobbled badly at 14 for 2, the middle overs went quiet for nine overs, and the 110 collapse is still fresh enough to demand answers. But finals are remembered for trophies, not for footnotes, and on October 31 in Lahore, Pakistan chased 326, hit the winning six, and lifted the cup. That is the story that will travel with this team.

Images: Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore (Wikimedia Commons, illustrative — not match photos). Gaddafi Stadium at Night by Younis Junejo, CC BY-SA 4.0; Gaddafi Stadium during PSL 2026, CC0.

Sources: ESPNcricinfo match report and scorecard; The News / AFP; Cricbuzz scorecard; Devdiscourse. All scores, figures and quotes verified against at least two of these sources.