Friday, 29 March 2013

Bangladesh tight win

           
    Overall it was a fine occasion for the visitors, who had left-arm spinner Abdur Razzak becoming the first Bangladesh bowler to aggregate 200 ODI wickets, as he picked up a five-wicket haul that helped drag them back into the game after Sri Lanka's openers had built a fine platform. The hosts didn't build appropriately on that excellent start, ending up at 302 for 9 in their 50 overs when they looked on course for much more.Promoted up to No. 5, Nasir witnessed madness at the other end as the batsmen gave a chance to the calm Sri Lankan fielders and bowlers almost every over. But he minded his own end, ensuring he was there when the business end of the game came about. Bangladesh began their innings in an equally good manner, with Mohammad Ashraful and Anamul Haque adding 77 runs for the first wicket. But rain delayed the chase for more than two hours, with the score at 78 for 1 in 13.4 overs. As play restarted at 10.20pm local time, as per Duckworth-Lewis calculations, the visitors needed to score another 105 runs to win in the next 13.2 overs, and they did.But the home side waited far too long to bring on the offspinner Senanayake after the rain break, and that probably cost them. Senanayake's angle from around the wicket gave the Bangladesh batsmen too much to think about, and there were several moments when wickets were just inches away. He took 2 for 26 from his six overs. Jeevan Mendis hasn't bowled an over in the series and given the visitors' weakness against legspinners, Mathews missed a trick there too.But things could have been different had Bangladesh wilted after Lasith Malinga's final over. The two wickets he claimed in that over all but sealed the series for the home side but Nasir charged at Thisara Perera in the next, the penultimate over. He took 14 out of the 18 runs required in that over, playing an easy square-cut and two proper slogs over midwicket to snatch back the momentum. With two runs to win off seven balls, Sohag Gazi top-edged one over wicketkeeper Kumar Sangakkara, before turning and giving his batting partner a hug.

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