Pakistan hit back superbly after Sri Lanka made a flying start

Younis saw his bowlers hit back after a poor start to dismiss Sri Lanka for 253 before Abdul Razzaq and Shoaib Malik held their nerve to see them home.

"The fielding was very encouraging and all the time I had a back-up plan with the bowling," the skipper explained.

"Imran Farhat, Mohammad Yousuf and Razzaq batted well. I'm always telling Malik to stay till the end and he did."

Razzaq started off expensively but returned to take four wickets as Sri Lanka slumped from a promising position of 181-3.

He was dropped on five before smacking 38 off only 24 balls and sealing victory with the second of his sixes.

"I was struggling with the ball because the pitch was very slow. I just tried to keep the ball on the middle of the stumps," he explained.

"With the batting, I was under pressure. The situation was tense. We needed seven runs an over but we got there."

We made a lot of mistakes and shot ourselves in the foot Mahela Jayawardene

Sri Lanka had breezed through qualifying and were many observers' favourites for the tournament.

Skipper Mahela Jayawardene admitted they had been their own worst enemies but remained optimistic they could still reach the semi-finals.

He said: "We made a lot of mistakes in this game and shot ourselves in the foot. We lost wickets at crucial times.

"Whenever we looked like building up a decent score we lost wickets so the momentum wasn't there and dropped catches aren't going to help the cause.

"We didn't play our A game but we have a few more games left. It's not all over for us and we will see what we can do."