Colombo: Pakistan captain Salman Ali Agha led his team to a 32-run win over the United States (USA) in their Group A match of the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Sinhala Sports Club (SSC) ground here on Tuesday.
Batting first, the 2009 champions overcame defeat at the hands of the associate nation in the previous edition of the T20 World Cup, amassing a mammoth total of 190/9 in their 20 overs thanks to Sahibzada Farhan’s magnificent half-century.
Farhan top-scored for Pakistan with 73 off 41 balls with 6 fours and 5 sixes, while star batsman Babar Azam and all-rounder Shatab Khan contributed to the total with 46 and 30 runs respectively.
In turn, despite Shubham Ranjane’s brave half-century and Shayan Jahangir’s action, the USA managed to post 158/8 in 20 overs.
Mystery spinner Usman Tariq led Pakistan’s bowling with economical figures of 3/27 from his four overs, followed by Shadab’s 2/26, while Shaheen Shah Afridi, Mohammad Nawaz and Abrar Ahmed chipped in with a scalp each.
Reflecting his team’s second win in as many matches of the T20 World Cup 2026, Agha produced a strong performance with the bat in the opening and middle stages of the innings.
Agha further revealed that he was confident of Pakistan’s bowling attack to defend the 191-run target, which he described as “world-class”.
“A clinical performance, we started well with the bat and batted well in the middle. When we came to bowl, we knew we had a world-class attack and 190 and we could defend it,” Agha said in the post-match briefing.
“We are Pakistanis and we do it differently. We are comfortable chasing but we try to bat first and get above parity and then try to defend,” he said.
The all-rounder praised the flexibility of his team’s batting line-up but admitted room for improvement, especially in their bowling during the powerplay.
“We have a flexible order, the first three are ready to go, then the finishers can go early, or if we lose wickets, we have batsmen who can take the game deep,” Agha continued.
“There is always room for improvement, we want to bowl better in the powerplay and be more clinical. Those are the things we want to improve on,” he concluded.
Notably, they beat arch-rivals India, who will face them next at the R Premadasa Stadium here on Sunday, relegating Pakistan to the Group A standings of the 2026 T20 World Cup.