Emboldened by its comprehensive victory in the only warm-up game, Bangladesh are determined to spoil the farewell party of Lasith Malinga as they take on Sri Lanka in the first of three-match ODI series at R Premadasa Stadium in Colombo today.
The match starts at 3.00 PM (Bangladesh Time). BTV, GTV and Maasranga TV will telecast the match live. Stake is high for the Lankans as they bid adieu to one of their most charismatic guy-Lasith Malinga who won many matches for them in the last 15 years. He has already announced the first match in the series in going to be his last.
The whole Sri Lanka are pumped enough to give him befitting farewell. But Bangladesh have its own agenda. After coming off from a disappointing World Cup outing, where they finished at eighth in 10-team tournament, Bangladesh tasted a serious criticism and it is said the pain could be healed if they can win the series against Sri Lankan soil.
They did their first job perfectly-beating Sri Lanka’s Board President’s XI by five wickets, chasing 283-run target in warm-up game.Interim coach Khaled Mahmud Sujon termed his victory as morale booster.
Bangladesh’s problem is that they have never won a bilateral OD I series in Sri Lanka. But last two times they visited the country, they settled for draw by 1-1 in the three-match ODI series in 2013 and 2017. So it showed a significant development.
Bangladesh’s World Cup match against Sri Lanka was washed out due to rain, a match that many believed the Tigers could have won. What gave them the confidence was that they crushed Sri Lanka by 137 runs in the last match they played against them in Asia Cup in 2018, thanks to Mushfiqur Rahim’s 144.
Moreover, Bangladesh won some T20 matches at Lankans soil also, making them absolute favourite against them in recent time.
But the overall stat is still in Lankans favour. Out of the 45 ODIs between the two sides, Bangladesh won just 7, while Sri Lanka grabbed victory in 36 matches. The other two matches were washed out.
If the last five encounters between the two sides are taken into consideration, it is not such one sided as Bangladesh won two and lost three.
Sri Lanka was haphazard in the initial matches in World Cup but they regrouped well and finished at sixth position to better Bangladesh. No doubt that Malinga was the force in helping them to earn good result in World Cup.
So, the two teams came in the series in contrasting manner.
The future of the series however was thrown into doubt following the April 21 Easter Sunday attacks in Sri Lanka churches and hotels that killed more than 250 people.
Due to promises of providing highest level of security to Tigers by Sri Lanka, the series has found steam and finally is rolled out.
Bangladesh was pretty pleased with the type of security they are getting here but they solely focus on the series, knowing that they couldn’t afford another ordinary series following a World Cup disaster.
Even though it’s a new look Bangladesh, led by Tamim Iqbal who never captained the side in ODI cricket. Mashrafe Bin Mortaza’s injury-forced absence and Shakib Al Hasan’s absence for personal affairs was the reason to give Tamim the captaincy.
Apart from Mashrafe and Shakib, Bangladesh also didn’t get the service of Liton Das and Mohammad Saifuddin from their World Cup team.
Taijul Islam, Anamul Haque Bijoy, Farhad Reza and Taskin Ahmed came to the side while Shaiful Islam is the late edition.
Despite a new look team, Bangladesh are confident that they will start the series as favourite.
Sri Lanka also brought up five changes from the World Cup squad for the series.
It’s the mission for two teams to improve their rankings too. The rankings would be affected in case of win or loss but there will be impact in rating points.
Bangladesh are at seventh position in rankings with 90 points.
Sitting at eighth position in rankings with 79 rating points, Sri Lanka could significantly improve their rating points, if they could whitewash Bangladesh. In case of 3-0 victory, Sri Lanka’s rating point will be 82, while Bangladesh’s drop to 86. But Bangladesh’s rating point will be 93 if they whitewash Sri Lanka. And Bangladesh’s goal is to sweep the series indeed.
