Pakistan cruised to 118-4 with eight balls to spare in a lop-sided final with opening batters Saim Ayub (36) and Sahibzada Farhan (23) providing a solid start before Babar Azam scored an unbeaten 37 off 34 balls.

Sri Lanka came into the final with back-to-back wins over Zimbabwe and Pakistan but crumbled against spinners Mohammad Nawaz (3-17), Abrar Ahmed (2-18) and Ayub (1-17).

The visitors looked set to post a competitive total by reaching 81-1 at the halfway stage but hit just one six in the 12 overs off the slow bowlers.

Left-handed opener Kamil Mishara staked his claim for next year’s T20 World Cup with 59 off 47 balls as he shared 64-run stand with Kusal Mendis (14) to give Sri Lanka a perfect platform.

But the slide began when Babar plucked a terrific catch over his head on the edge of long-off boundary in Nawaz’s first over to dismiss Mendis in the 11th over.

Mishara, who raised his half-century off 37 balls, tried to push the scoring rate before Babar hung onto another brilliant diving catch while running from long-off boundary as Sri Lanka slipped to 98-3 in the 14th over.

Ahmed then claimed two wickets in one over with Babar capping his perfect day in the outfield by grabbing Pavan Rathnayake’s (8) catch and Kusal Perera’s below-par white-ball tour to Pakistan continued when he skied a catch to wicketkeeper Usman Khan after scoring 1 off 6 balls.

Nawaz finished the tri-series as the top wicket taker with 10 wickets when he dismissed Janith Liyanage and Wanindu Hasaranga cheaply before Shaheen Shah Afridi (3-18) mopped up the tail in his return spell to limit Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka struggled to get an early breakthrough as Farhan and Ayub shared 46-run opening stand. Ayub was aggressive against Maheesh Theekshana in the power play and hit the spinner for three boundaries in one over and Farhan smacked Hasaranga for a six and a four of the first two balls the leg-spinner bowled after the power play.

Eshan Malinga (1-16) had Farhan clean bowled off a delivery that seamed into the right-hander and Ayub got trapped lbw of Hasaranga’s (1-31) delivery that kept low and struck the left-hander on the backfoot.

Although Rathnayake (2-11) claimed the wickets of Agha and Fakhar Zaman in successive overs, Babar stayed calm before guiding Dushmantha Chameera to third for a winning boundary with plenty of balls to spare.