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BAN vs SL | Ton-up Kusal Perera, hostile Dushmantha Chameera propel Sri Lanka to face-saving win

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A captain’s knock from Kusal Perera and a dominating five-wicket haul from Dushmantha Chameera helped Sri Lanka salvage pride after losing the first two match and the ODI series against Bangladesh. 

Chasing a formidable target of 286 runs, Bangladesh got off to almost the worst possible start against Chameera as the tall pacer ripped through the top order and sent back Mohammad Naim and Shakib Al Hasan before in a span of 13 balls. 

Naim was guilty of wafting at a delivery that kept on going away from him with the angle and the edge was snaffled by Kusal Mendis while Shakib was beaten for pace on a short ball when he tried to take on the short deliveries from Chameera.

Then, the skipper Tamim Iqbal and man-in form Mushfiqur Rahim adopted a pretty defensive approach in face of a hostile bowling spell from Chameera. The duo would have hoped to prey on others after seeing off the new ball but the move did not work well as Tamim disappointingly fell to Chameera while trying to be cheeky and handed the right-armer his third wicket inside the powerplay. 

Tamim felt his bat touched simultaneously when the ball was near and hence the decision was not correct and he made no qualms about his disapproval of the decision which might also fetch him some demerit points later on.

The next man in, Mosaddek Hossain tried to tee off and hit some lusty boundaries and tried to put Bangladesh back on track. However, Mushfiqur Rahim was getting stuck at the other end and failure to hit boundaries while the required run rate was going up made him desperate against debutant Ramesh Mendis who got him caught at long-on as his maiden ODI wicket.

Mosaddek was in a great rhythm and he got excellent support from Mahmudullah as the dup started hitting the gaps to keep Bangladesh in the game. Mosaddek reached his fifty but an always increasing required rate forced him to manufacture shot and Mendis came back to claim another wicket on his debut.

Mahmudullah got going with crisp boundaries but Chameera came back to wipe up the tail and open the account for Sri Lanka in the ODI Super League.

Earlier, Sri Lanka won the toss and elected to bat first after making as many as three changes in the playing XI from the series-losing game. 

In contrast to Bangladesh’s start in batting, Sri Lanka were off to a rollicking start as Danushka Gunathilaka got going with a boundary on the very first ball. There was no dearth of momentum and the opening pair of Kusal Perera and Gunathilaka made merry of Bangladesh’s inaccuracies with the ball. The pair put on a rapid 82-run partnership in 12 overs before Taskin Ahmed came into the attack and struck two back to back wickets to peg Sri Lanka back.

Perera reached his fifty and did not look in any mood to throw his wicket away as Kusal Mendis joined him in the middle. The right-hander took a calculated risk to keep the scoreboard going till the 26th over when he too was undone by Taskin Ahmed’s pace.

Perera then found a perfect partner in Dhananjaya de Silva but he earned a reprieve only by DRS when the umpired adjudged him LBW against Taskin. 

There was no stopping Perera though but he too earned a timely reprieve at 99 when Mahmudullah failed to grab a tough chance at mid-off against Mustafizur Rahman. He later redeemed himself with an excellent catch to send back the Sri Lankan skipper.

Perera’s dismissal did little to change Sri Lanka’s momentum as de Silva in the company of Niroshan Dickwella and Wanindu Hasaranga took Sri Lanka to a formidable total.

Perera would be relived at getting off the mark in his ODI captaincy career as he has already earned a rather unceremonious tag of becoming the first Sri Lanka captain to lose a series against Bangladesh. The win although can’t change the scoreline of the series provided glimpses of Perera’s changing role in the current Sri Lankan batting order while Bangladesh over-reliance on Mushfiqur, Tamim and Shakib finally came back to hurt them as none of them could bail them out of trouble what could have been an otherwise dead rubber but not in the current era of ODI Super League.

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