Sri Lankan skipper Marvan Atapattu put the blame on his batsmen after their eight-wicket defeat by Pakistan. They only totalled 232-9 and Yousuf Youhana (107) and Man of the Match Shoaib Malik (86) comfortably knocked off the runs for the home side.

"We were comfortably placed by the 35th over but we had a mid-innings collapse which didn’t help our cause. "It was a good batting track. We must try and improve our intensity in the next two games," said Atapattu.

Sri Lanka will start favourites against Zimbabwe, the other team in the competition, having beaten them by four wickets during the recent Champions Trophy.

But Pakistan are now certain of a place in the final.

"Sri Lanka are a tough team, but our boys did the hard work by restricting them to 232 and then Shoaib and Yousuf did a wonderful job," skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq commented.

"Yousuf is a senior player and played a tremendous innings and Shoaib is good in all three departments of the game."

Malik also contributed 3-32 with the ball and ran out Sri Lanka’s top scorer Sanath Jayasuriya (53). "If you are mentally strong and work hard, it’s not difficult to perform," he said. "I wasn’t concerned that we had four batsmen in the dressing room waiting for their turns - I just tried to occupy the crease."