Thirimanne made most of the friendly batting surface to reach his second ODI century in 107 balls with 11 smashing boundaries and a single six to his credit.
The left-hander along with Kumar Sangakkara, who hit his 84th half-century, put up a solid 161-run partnership to lead the Sri Lankan run charge after Umar Gul gave Pakistan their first breakthrough early in the innings.
Gul had Kusal Perera caught behind soon after Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews won the toss and chose to bat.
However, the Thirimanne-Sangakkara duo steadied the Sri Lankan innings that saw the former hit a stupendous century.
Thirimanne's ton came just after Gul proved instrumental in breaking the gritty stand between him and Kumar Sangakkara when he dismissed the latter.
Sangakkara (67) failed to negotiate Gul's shot of length delivery and was caught by Ahmed Shehzad in comfortable manner at mid-wicket.
Sangakkara hit 8 boundaries in his innings and became only the second Sri Lankan batsman after Sanath Jayasuriya to reach the 12,000-run mark in one-day internationals when he was on 12.
Soon after, Saeed Ajmal got the better of Thirimanne's (102) stumps before Shahid Afridi struck twice in quick succession to give Pakistan some respite.
Afridi first joined the wicket-taking party when he scalped Mahela Jayawardene (13) by forcing the Sri Lankan to chop the ball on to his stumps.
Then Afridi had Thisara Perera (6) caught by Ahmed Shehzad to pick up his second wicket.
After winning the toss, Mathews said that they have got their full strength side back again apart from Nuwan Kulasekara. He added that it's a fresh start and they need to start well to get the momentum going.
Misbah said they don't really know what to make of the pitch but the last time they played here it was really slow. He also mentioned that they have gone with the same set of players that played in the UAE last year.
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