Cricket The Game of Uncertainties ***** Bangladesh beat’s Sri Lanka in 1st ODI match, played on 25th March,2017

Cricket is a game of many uncertainties and you can never know what you may witness on a given day. We have seen many matches where a strong team was defeated by a team which is said to be weaker in ability. These days if we talk about teams which are marked as weaker but are in Top 10 of International Cricket Council Rankings are Bangladesh, Ireland and Afghanistan and no can even trust what they can do on a  given day. One such game was played on 25th Match, 2017 in Sri Lanka. Bangladesh was playing a series of 3 One Day International Matches in Sri Lanka. Clearly Sri Lanka was the favorite to won the Match and series as well but you never know about Bangladesh’s performance. The match was played on the Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium, Dambulla, Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka won the toss and opted to bowl first which means Bangladesh will set target for Sri Lanka which they will try to chase later in the game.

Sri Lankan Team and 11 was looking like this in this 1^st One Day International: Upul Tharanga (c), Suranga Lakmal, Thisara Perera, Dinesh Chandimal (wk),Milinda Siriwardana, Danushka Gunathilaka, Sachith Pathirana, Kusal Mendis, Asela Gunaratne, Lahiru Kumara, Lakshan Sandakan

And Bangladesh Team and 11 was looking like this in this 1^st One Day International: Mashrafe Mortaza (c), Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Shakib Al Hasan, Tamim Iqbal,Mahmudullah, Sabbir Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Mosaddek Hossain Saikat,Taskin Ahmed, Mustafizur Rahman, Mehedi Hasan.

The Two on field umpires were Michael Gough, R Martinesz and third umpire was S Ravi from India. Andy P was the Match referee of this Match.

Bangladesh started the Innings with T Iqbal and S Sarkar. Bangladesh started very well and was off to a flying start but unluckily S Sarkar lost his wicket on the team score of 29 runs in 4.4 over’s and he contributed 10 runs in 13 balls with 2 fours. After that S Rahman made his way to the middle of the Ground and both he and T Iqbal put a very great partnership and they were the ones who made possible the match winning target of 324 runs in 50 over’s at the loss of 5 wickets. In the end over’s S A Hasan made contribution of 72 runs in 71 balls with 4 fours and 1 six. T Iqbal made 127 runs in 142 balls with 15 fours and 1 six at the strike rate of 89 runs in 100 balls faced and S Rahman made 54 runs in 56 Balls with 10 fours and strike rate of 96 runs in 100 balls faced. Also in the end Mosaddek Hossain Saikat made a useful contribution of 24 runs in 9 balls with 3 fours and 1 six at the strike rate of 267 runs in 100 balls faced.

Sri Lanka was needed to score 325 runs in allotted 50 over’s at the required run rate of 6.5 Runs per over to win this 1^st One Day International match and take lead of 1-0 in this 3 match ODI series.

Sri Lanka started with Danushka Gunathilaka and Standing skipper Upul Tharanga as Sri Lanka’s Captain Angelo M is declared unfit to play in this series. Sri Lanka started very poorly and lost their 1^st wicket in the form of Danushka Gunathilaka in the 1^st over of their innings with no score on the board and that gives a setback to Sri lanka’s hope to chase this target and win this game. Then Sri Lanka played steadily but then it again lost its 2^nd wicket on the team score of 15 runs in the 6^th over of the innings in the form of K Mendis. Sri Lanka kept losing wickets at the regular intervals in the game and never looked like in the game and to able to won it. And was bowled out for only 234 runs in 45.1 over’s and lost the game by 90 runs. That was indeed a very bad performance for Sri Lanka playing in their home ground and very fine as handsome performance for Bangladesh who are playing very well since past 2 years. In the past 2 years Bangladesh has beaten Australia, England, India, South Africa and many other teams and this shows that now they are improving as a team by leaps and bounds and we never know, if next Champions trophy which was scheduled to be played in July,2017 in England and Wales could be won the Bangladesh Tigers.

Writers Analysis:  The main reason for Sri Lanka’s defeat is that Sri Lanka was not able to bowl well in the 1^st innings of the match. Also the absence of their skipper Angelo Mathew’s absence as he is a very impressive middle order batsman and a very effective bowler as well who can bowl in any condition, in start of the innings, in the middle over’s and even in the end over’s as well. The Sri Lanka’s standing skipper U Tharanga is still very young and not much experienced in the captaincy. The New addition in the Sri Lanka team Lahiru Kumara conceded a lot many runs 74 runs in 8 over’s and just took a single wicket which is not at all good for a new ball bowler. Also the All rounder T Perera did not bowled well and conceded 63 runs in 8 over’s without taking any wicket. The pressure of chasing 325 runs is enormous and to chase that target one needs a very good and brisk start which is not the case with Sri Lanka in this 1^st One Day International match. To Bangladesh’s credits they batted superbly well and came with a plan to target specific bowlers of Sri Lanka and they did that superbly and while bowling and fielding as well. Bangladesh did not drop any catches and their ground fielding was very nice as well mostly in this match. Addition of Mosaddek Hossain Saikat and Mahmuduallh Riad is like a blessing for Bangladesh as both these all rounder’s are playing very well and they are very effective in the fielding department as well. Also for Bangladesh S A Hasan holds the key with bat, ball and also in the field, as he already batted very well in this match and also in bowling he picked 1 wicket by only conceding 33 runs in his over’s and also saved many runs while fielding. Also the good combination of Youth and Experience is helping Bangladesh a lot.

So the Bottom line of this match is Bangladesh won the game by 90 runs and now leads the series 1-0 with 2 more games to play. T Iqbal was adjudged man of the Match for his fine batting performance.

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