Bangladesh will face Sri Lanka at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo today (Saturday) in their second Super Four match in another life-or-death battle in the Asia Cup. The match will start at 3:30 pm Bangladesh time. The match will be telecast live on T-Sports.
Having lost to Pakistan by 7 wickets in the opening match of the Super Four phase of the Asia Cup in Lahore, there is no other way for Bangladesh to survive in the tournament but a win. If they lose to Sri Lanka, the Tigers’ hopes of playing in the final of the Asia Cup will end somehow.
Bangladesh started the Asia Cup losing to Sri Lanka by 5 wickets in the group stage at Pallekele. That’s why the Tigers’ match against Afghanistan turned into a life-and-death battle. Bangladesh made a great comeback by defeating Afghans by 89 runs in the match. Batting first, Bangladesh scored a team-high 334 runs for 5 wickets on foreign soil.
The team has already become quite weak in the absence of batsman Nazmul Hossain Shanta. Liton, one of the best batters of the Tiger team in the past few years, could not continue his consistency despite getting a chance to replace Shanta. Liton’s inconsistency in recent times has worried the team.
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have met a total of 16 times on the Asia Cup stage. Among them, the Lankans won 13 of them. In all, the two teams have met in ODIs a total of 52 times. In this case, Sri Lanka won 41 times and Bangladesh won 9 matches. The remaining 2 matches were abandoned.
Bangladesh Probable XI:
Shakib Al Hasan (captain), Liton Das, Tawheed Hriday, Mushfiqur Rahim, Afif Hossain, Mehdi Hasan Miraj, Taskin Ahmed, Hasan Mahmud, Shariful Islam, Shamim Hossain Patwari and Enamul Haque Vijay.
Sri Lanka Probable XI:
Dasun Shanaka (captain), Pathum Nishanka, Dimuth Karunaratne, Kushal Mendis, Dhananjaya de Silva, Charith Asalanka, Sadira Samarawickrama, Dunith Welalaghe, Mahesh Thikshana, Mathisha Pathirana and Kasun Rajitha.
(08 September/MM)